Who is Sergei Mironovich Kirov? The biography of this person is full of such events, which historically allows us to put him in a special place among the leaders of the party elite of the Soviet era. Even his death was the reason for the start of serious events that claimed more than a dozen lives of innocent people.
Kirov Sergei Mironovich: biography of a young revolutionary
S. M. Kirov was born on March 27, 1886 in Urzhum (a city in the Vyatka province) in a family of ordinary workers. The boy was only eight years old when he was left without parents: his mother died, his father, having gone to work, disappeared without a trace. And if the grandmother took Seryozha's sisters to her, then she sent him to a shelter for minors. By the way, at that time the surname of the future party leader was Kostrikov. He became Kirov much later. But first things first.
Sergey grew up as a smart and hardworking child, studying did not create any special problems for him. After successfully graduating in his native Urzhum, first the parish and then the city school, the boy, having enlisted the recommendations of his teachers, goes to Kazan, where he enters the mechanical and technical industrial school and in 1904 brilliantly studied it.graduates as one of the top five graduates.
In the same year, Kostrikov moved to Tomsk and got a job as a draftsman in the city government, while simultaneously studying at the preparatory courses of the Technological Institute. But the planned peaceful future was not destined to come true.
Sergey, imbued with revolutionary ideas back in Kazan, having moved to Tomsk, at the first opportunity becomes an active member of the RSDLP under the party pseudonym Serge. In 1905, he was arrested for participating in a demonstration, but he did not stay in prison for long. After his release at the next party conference, he was elected to the committee of the Tomsk RSDLP. He becomes the organizer of anti-government demonstrations and rallies, forms fighting squads. As a result, in 1906, Sergei Kostrikov was arrested again. This time he is sent to prison for a year and a half.
Failed but not broken
In June 1908, S. M. Kostrikov was released from prison, which was supposed to change his views on the revolutionary movement. However, this did not happen. After leaving prison, he goes to Irkutsk, where, after the restoration of the party organization, almost completely destroyed by the police, he again begins to actively work in the revolutionary direction both in the city itself and in Novonikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk). In May 1909, Serge, avoiding police persecution, was forced to leave for the south of the country.
Work in the North Caucasus
In Vladikavkaz, he works closely with the local cadet newspaper"Terek", publishing articles about the impressions received during the ascent of "Elbrus" and "Kazbek", leaves reviews of theatrical performances taking place in the city. Here he met his future second common-law wife Maria Lvovna Markus.
At the end of the summer of 1911, Kostrikov was again arrested on an old case, started back in Tomsk. He was charged with organizing an underground printing house, but his guilt was never proven. Kostrikov continues to work at Terek, but in order not to attract attention once again, he takes the pseudonym Kirov, which is believed to have been formed on behalf of the king of Persia - Cyrus. From that moment on, the biography of Sergei Mironovich Kirov is nothing outstanding. Although the articles written by him, which often expose the existing regime, are highly popular among the opposition-minded population.
Party career and civil war
Up to the very revolution (1917), S. M. Kirov did not show himself particularly, and during the coup he was not among those who seriously influenced what was happening in the country. The party biography of Sergei Mironovich Kirov made another leap only in 1919: he was appointed head of the Astrakhan Revolutionary Committee. From this moment begins his fairly rapid ascent through the career ladder.
After the counter-revolutionary rebellion in Astrakhan was brutally suppressed under his direct leadership, the procession was shot, Metropolitan Mitrofan and Bishop Leonty were killed, Kirov became a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Eleventh Red Army. WithFrom the very beginning of 1919, Sergei Mironovich, together with S. Ordzhonikidze, led the offensive of his units in the North and South Caucasus: on March 30, Vladikavkaz was taken, and a month later (May 1) - Baku.
At the end of May 1920, Kirov was appointed plenipotentiary representative in Georgia, where the Mensheviks still held power. In early October of the same year, Sergei Mironovich, at the head of the Soviet delegation, went to Riga to sign a peace treaty with the Poles, after which he returned to the North Caucasus, where he joined the ranks of the Caucasian RCP (b). In March 1921, as a delegate to the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b), Kirov was approved as a candidate member of the party's central committee.
In April 1921, Sergei Mironovich chaired the congress of the Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (now North Ossetia). And already in July of the same year, he was elected secretary of the Central Control Commission of Azerbaijan. And soon he becomes one of the founders of the Transcaucasian SFSR (December 1922). In April 1923, the delegates of the Twelfth Congress of the RCP (b) accept Kirov as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b). The head of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, S. M. Kirov, was sympathetic to Stalin, despite the fact that, in fact, he remained a minor figure in the party hierarchy. He was not considered an upstart, did not seek to occupy high positions, and at the same time he had a real gift for persuasion, excellent business acumen, and was also known as an excellent manager and loyal ally.
Kirov in Leningrad
Stalin's good attitude towards Kirov soon resulted in his appointment as head of the Leningrad party organization. Its main task was to reduce to zero the influenceon the Leningrad communists of the former leader of the city party, Grigory Zinoviev, a sworn enemy of Stalin. And Kirov succeeded, despite the fact that they even tried to use cooperation with the Kadet newspaper against him. Sergei Mironovich not only achieved complete control over the city's party organization, but also became practically the master of Leningrad, controlling literally everything and even solving housing and household issues. Successes in the management of the city eventually made him a major political figure.
However, there is an interesting fact - Kirov Sergei Mironovich, although he could claim the highest levels of power in the country, especially after he became a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Communist Party (b), did not take advantage of this, but focused entirely on the affairs of Leningrad. This suggests that in the first place Kirov had selfless work, and not career building. At the same time, he fully supported the policy pursued by Stalin, which, of course, suited him. For Iosif Vissarionovich, he was a good and, most importantly, reliable support without a “stone in his bosom.”
But the family did not work out
If everything was fine with social activities, then the personal life of Sergei Mironovich Kirov did not want to develop. In 1920, he met his first wife (no information about her has been preserved). A year later, they had a girl - Eugene. But disaster struck - Kirov's wife became seriously ill and soon died.
There was no time for a party leader to take care of a child - work in his life took all the time, and Evgenia Sergeevna KostrikovaI had to repeat the childhood fate of my father - to go to a boarding school. This happened after her parent decided to connect his life with an old friend - Maria Lvovna Markus. The woman categorically refused to accept someone else's child. Thus, the first family of Sergey Mironovich Kirov completely collapsed, and it was very difficult to call the second full-fledged one, since Markus was only Kirov's cohabitant and never gave birth to children.
By the way, Evgenia Sergeevna Kostrikova was a worthy daughter of her father, Sergei Mironovich Kirov. An interesting fact from her biography is a vivid proof of this. During the war with fascist Germany, she was the only woman commander in history who had an entire tank company under her command.
How was Sergei Mironovich Kirov killed?
It is believed that women were Kirov's weakness. There were gossips about his numerous novels with famous actresses of the Leningrad and Bolshoi theaters. However, no information was found to support this. And the possible illegitimate children of Sergei Mironovich Kirov also never declared themselves, at least there is no evidence of this. Nevertheless, one of the versions connects his death with a love adventure. According to this assumption, Kirov had a fleeting affair with Milda Draule, an employee of the regional committee. Her husband Leonid Nikolaev, having learned about this, decided to punish his opponent by killing him.
There is another version, according to which Nikolaev, being an unbalanced person and with overestimatedambitions, he decided in this way to become famous and go down in history, as the murderers of Alexander II did. Whether this is true or not is no longer known, but the fact that it was he who personally sentenced such a prominent party leader to death is an indisputable fact. At that time, state institutions did not have serious security, so it was not difficult for Nikolaev, armed with a pistol, to penetrate Smolny, where the city committee of the party was then located. Meeting Kirov in the corridor of the palace and following him, Nikolaev shot him in the head, after which he tried to commit suicide, but failed, fainting.
The murder of Kirov as a pretext for repressions
After the detention of Nikolaev and a series of interrogations, it became clear to the investigators that the killer acted alone, and there was no political motive in this crime. However, this result did not suit Stalin: “his man”, a high-ranking statesman, should not have died so stupidly, which means that his death can be used to your advantage. To do this, it simply had to be presented as the intrigues of the opposition environment.
As a result, after a series of political trials, 17 people were shot, about 80 went to prison, 30 went into exile. Thousands of people were expelled from Leningrad as unreliable. By the way, not only Nikolaev was shot, but also his wife (Kirov's supposed mistress) Milda Draule.
Tribute to the memory of Kirov
The fiery tribune of the revolution, completely devoted to the country and the cause of the party, enjoyed not only high prestige among the people, he was really loved and revered in the SovietUnion. In honor of him, the city of Vyatka was renamed Kirov (1934), and monuments to Sergei Mironovich Kirov can be found in many parts of the country. The "owner of Leningrad" was buried near the Kremlin wall, on Red Square in Moscow.
