Kirovsky Stream

Categories / Social Life/Political Repressions
KIROVSLY STREAM is the unofficial name of large-scale persecutions in Leningrad after the murder of S.M. Kirov on 1 December 1934. A Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR was adopted on the day of the murder, pertaining to the special order of investigating terrorist acts, which envisioned investigation of such cases within the period of 10 days, without presence of either prosecution or defence attorneys, no right of appeal and immediate carrying-out of the sentence. Initially it was the inner party opposition that was accused of Kirov’s murder. On 28 December 1934, the trial of the Leningrad Centre was held: 14 people, mostly Young Communist League leaders of Leningrad, were accused of the preparing the murder of Kirov and executed. All other arrested suspects (party officials of Leningrad, all in all 77 people) were sentenced to different terms of confinement by Decree of the Special Conference of the People's Commissariat of Home Affairs of the USSR adopted on 16 January 1935. At the trial of the Moscow Centre the former leader of the Leningrad Party Organization G. E. Zinovyev was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. On 17 January 1935, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party ordered an exile of 663 adherents of Zinovyev from Leningrad and about the transferral of 325 former members of the party opposition from Leningrad to other regions of the country. All in all in January-February 1935, some 843 adherents of Zinovyev were arrested. During the following months of 1935, in addition to party purges, passport purges were organized within the operation entitled Former People. All in all in 1935, some 39,660 people were exiled from Leningrad and from Leningrad Region, 24,374 people were sentenced to various terms. Later on the same formula — Trotsky-Zinovyev's Terrorist Group, Organization, etc. — was used as a persecution measure in the practice of punitive organs.

References: Иванов В. А. Миссия Ордена: Механизм массовых репрессий в Сов. России в конце 20-х-40-х гг.: (На материалах Северо-Запада РСФСР). СПб., 1997.

I. A. Flige. Kirov (real name Kostrikov) Sergey Mironovich
Zinovyev Grigory Evseevich
Zinovyev Grigory Evseevich
Иванов В. А. Миссия Ордена: Механизм массовых репрессий в Сов. России в конце 20-х - 40-х гг.: (На материалах Северо-Запада РСФСР). СПб., 1997 Pravda (The Truth), newspaper
"Great Terror"
Kirovsky Stream
1934