[…]

The materials that we have at hand give the following picture of the circumstances of the murder of Kirov.

On December 1, 1934 Sergei Mironovich was at home in the morning, preparing for his report on the results of the November plenum of the TsK to a meeting of the Leningrad party organization aktiv, which was to begin at 6 P.M. in the Uritsky Palace. One and a half hours before the opening of the meeting he rode to Smolny, went upstairs to the third floor, and was killed by a shot in the back of his head not far from his office.

Employees of the regional party committee who came running at the sound of shots apprehended Nikolaev, in an unconscious state, at the scene of the crime. Nikolaev had on his person a party card and other documents identifying him. Near him there lay a revolver with five live cartridges and two empty shells. Doctors determined that the detainee was in a “reactive hysterical state.” Interrogation of [Nikolaev] began only several hours later.

As Nikolaev testified, he came to the regional party committee to get a ticket to the party activists’ meeting from his former co-workers. He got into the building using his party card, and, seeing Kirov on the third floor, he took advantage of the fact that there was no one nearby, and followed him. In the small corridor he shot him in the head from a short distance. He attempted to kill himself with a second shot, but failed.

From the materials of the inquiry it is not clear […] whether Nikolaev knew beforehand of Kirov’s arrival at Smolny or whether he met him by chance. According to the testimony of former employees of the Special Sector of the regional committee, Kirov as a rule prepared his lectures at home, but prior to his speeches dropped in at Smolny. Employees of the regional party committee named by Nikolaev confirmed that not long before Kirov’s murder he had approached them with requests to provide him a ticket to the party activists’ meeting. Nikolaev’s relatives also testified that he intended to attend the meeting of the party activists.

At his first interrogations Nikolaev categorically denied that he had any collaborators. Suspicions that someone aided Nikolaev at the moment of Kirov’s killing were not confirmed by the investigation. After the attack all the exits from Smolny were closed and the building cordoned off. A check found no suspicious persons.

Under questioning Operations Commissar Borisov, whose duty was to guard Kirov in Smolny, deposed that he had walked behind Kirov along the main corridor at a distance of approximately twenty steps. He heard the shot before he turned into the small corridor, and while he was “drawing [his] revolver from its holster and cocking it” there was a second shot. Running into the small corridor he saw there “two [persons] lying on the floor by the doors to the reception room.” Those persons who were among the first on the scene of the crime testified that they saw Borisov—some at the corner of the main and small corridors as he cocked his pistol, others already at the scene of the murder.

The Nagan system revolver found on the scene of the crime belonged to Nikolaev. It was registered by him in 1924, but after April 1931 the license to bear the weapon was for some reason not renewed. In 1966 experts who examined Nikolaev’s revolver and the bullet extracted from Kirov’s head concluded that the murder was committed with that same weapon.

In explaining the motive for the crime at the beginning of the investigation, Nikolaev testified that he was pushed to act by his “estrangement from the party” and his “unemployment and the absence of material and most importantly moral aid from party organizations.” In his words, “the attempt on Kirov’s life had the main goal of making a political signal before the party.” In this way he wanted “to get the party to pay attention to a living human being and to the heartless bureaucratic attitude towards him,” and he had fulfilled this “historic mission.” Nikolaev’s initial depositions on the motive for the murder correspond […] to the content of his writings seized in the searches. Later, when the fabrication of the case of the “Leningrad Terrorist Zinovievite Center” began, Nikolaev gave different testimony, declaring that he had committed the crime at the orders of the Zinovievites. [There follows a description of Nikolaev’s biography and his writings.]

[…]

The organizers and instigators of this evil deed were first presented as the Zinovievites, then the Trotskyites, and then the Rightists, who used for their purpose Yagoda and the deputy chief of the Leningrad regional NKVD Zaporozhets. Beginning in 1956 writers of letters, declarations, and depositions began to express the suspicion, and later the conviction, that the murder of Kirov was organized by the same Yagoda and Zaporozhets, but at the order of Stalin. The interest of Stalin in the physical elimination of Kirov was explained by the growing authority of Kirov, and by policy disagreements between them that led Stalin to have a hostile attitude towards Kirov. […] It was also stated that there were conversations among delegates to the Seventeenth Party Congress, which became known to Stalin, about the promotion of Kirov to his post, and that Kirov was elected to the Central Committee almost unanimously, while Stalin received many “No” votes, but that the true results of the voting were hidden from the delegates.

In the process of investigation no direct evidence of the participation of Stalin in Kirov’s murder was found and the materials on hand do not support such a charge.

The question of the relations between Stalin and Kirov is very difficult […] above all due to the complexity and contradictions of Stalin’s personality. Persons making claims about unfriendly relations between Stalin and Kirov were not closely acquainted with either, were not present at their meetings, and given their social positions could not have directly observed the interactions of Stalin with Kirov. […] At the same time there is evidence that Kirov spoke warmly of Stalin, that when he visited Moscow he visited him at home and spent his free time with him, and that Stalin in his turn looked favorably on Kirov.

[…]

A copy of an NKVD memorandum to Stalin has been preserved, “On the results of the investigation of M. N. Volkova’s reports.” It lays out her “most characteristic reports” for August–October 1934. In the NKVD memorandum there are no data indicating that Volkova knew the terrorist Nikolaev or denounced his criminal plans. Nor are there such data in the criminal case files on Nikolaev or the officers of the Leningrad regional NKVD.

It should also be noted that in October–November 1934 the state of operational work in Leningrad was reviewed by the USSR NKVD. Serious shortcomings in agent-operational and investigative work were uncovered by the commission, but in its report there is not one mention of any case of signals of terror being ignored.

[The report then covers Borisov’s death and the extraction of “confessions” from Borisov’s guards by torture in 1937.]

[…]

In 1967 a joint commission of experts in auto engineering, traffic accident reconstruction, and forensic medicine, after studying the materials on hand and carrying out necessary analysis and experiments, came to the following conclusion: Borisov was transported in an automobile with serious technical problems, which under the circumstances could have led to the accident in which Borisov smashed into the wall of the building and received a fatal blow to his head.

[…]

As a result of the review of the circumstances of the Kirov murder we believe it possible to conclude the following.

S. M. Kirov was killed by Nikolaev. He committed the crime for political reasons. There was no basis for the convictions of the persons charged in the same case as Nikolaev as his accomplices.

Operations Commissar Borisov died accidentally as the result of an automobile crash.

Materials on the participation of Stalin and NKVD officers in the murder of Kirov are not confirmed by objective data.

In connection with the terrorist attack on Kirov, several employees of the Leningrad regional NKVD and relatives of the murderer Nikolaev were convicted baselessly. It would be desirable to review the courts’ decisions regarding these persons according to established legal procedures.