The Great Terror

As yet, no NKVD announcement had directly blamed the assassination on anyone but Nikolayev. The “White Guards” had been vaguely charged with “terrorism.” On 21 December, it was at last officially stated that Kirov had been murdered by a “Leningrad Center,” headed by Kotolynov, and consisting of him, Nikolayev, and six others—all of them categorized as former members of the Zinoviev opposition who had “at various times been expelled from the Party,” though mostly restored to membership after statements of solidarity with the Party Line.⁴⁰ Six other accomplices were also implicated.

On the following day, a list was given for the first time of the arrested Zinovievite leaders, with a decision on the conduct of their cases.

There were distinguished names among them: Zinoviev and Kamenev, formerly members of the Politburo; G. E. Evdokimov, formerly member of the Secretariat; other former members and candidate members of the Central Committee—Zalutsky, who had formed with Molotov and Shlyapnikov the first Bolshevik Committee in Petrograd after the February Revolution; Fedorov; Kuklin; Safarov.⁴¹ For the moment, a partial accusation went forward. Regarding seven of those arrested, including Zinoviev, Kamenev, Zalutsky, and Safarov, it was announced that the NKVD, “lacking sufficient data for bringing them before a court,” would take them before a Special Board, with a view to sending them into administrative exile. With the others, headed by Bakayev, “further investigation” would take place. It was a typical Stalin move—suitable for gradually getting his colleagues and the Party used to the idea of Zinoviev’s guilt, and at the same time complicated and confusing enough to mask or blur his real intent.

Of the fifteen now mentioned, ten were to appear in the first ZinovievKamenev Trial the following month, together with nine not previously named.

On 27 December the formal accusation against the Nikolayev “group” was published. Now fourteen in number, they had allegedly been working since August, keeping a watch on Kirov’s flat and office, and deducing his usual movements. “Witnesses” were mentioned—Nikolayev’s wife, Milda Draule; his brother; and others. The conspirators were accused of having planned to kill Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich in addition to Kirov. And Nikolayev was also said to have been passing anti-Soviet material to an unspecified foreign consul, who later turned out to be the Latvian Bisseneks, though the NKVD is said to have originally favored his Finnish colleague.⁴² The already executed “White Guards” were vaguely worked in through connections Nikolayev was said to have formed with “Denikinists.”

“Documentary evidence” was mentioned, including a diary of Nikolayev’s and statements he had prepared. Apparently these showed clearly that he had no accomplices. It could not be totally suppressed at this stage, as too many uninitiated investigators and others seem to have seen it. So the official account, mentioning the diary, says that it was a forgery designed to give the impression that there was no conspiracy, but only a protest against the “unjust treatment of individuals,”⁴³ or, as a later and fuller version has it:

The accused Nikolayev prepared several documents (a diary, declarations addressed to various institutions, etc.) in which he tried to represent his crime as a personal manifestation of despair and discontent arising from the aggravation of his material situation and a protest against the unjust attitude of certain members of the Government toward a living person.⁴⁴

Three volumes of testimony are cited, each of them at least 200 pages long, including various confessions.⁴⁵ From all this it might have been expected that the prosecution could have held an open trial. It did not do so. On 28 and 29 December, a court presided over by the ubiquitous Ulrikh sat behind closed doors.

For the more important of Nikolayev’s alleged accomplices seem still to have refused to confess in spite of severe interrogation.⁴⁶

There were rumors, to put it no higher, that fellow prisoners had seen Kotolynov at the time of his interrogation, badly scarred and beaten.⁴⁷ But he and the other Zinovievite ex-Komsomols are said to have resisted to the end. The published announcement of their “trial” reported the conspirators as saying that their motive for killing Kirov was to replace the leadership with Zinoviev and Kamenev.⁴⁸ Nikolayev and all the others were sentenced to death and executed on 29 December.

The result so far was not entirely satisfactory to Stalin. The Party would still scarcely have accepted a direct incrimination of Zinoviev and Kamenev simply on trust, without the assassin being produced to testify to it in public. Moreover, after the first shock of Kirov’s death had died down, a strong element in the Politburo and elsewhere continued to put out Kirov’s own line of reconciliation and relaxation.