Talk:Sergei Kirov

The votes against Stalin

The number of votes against Stalin appears to be different in different sources. The memoirs of Anastas Mikoyan, chapter 48, available online in Russian [1] claims 287 votes. Mikoyan credits the information to Olga Shatunovskaya, who chaired a committee investigating Great Purges. Several other Russian webpages (i.e., [2]) claim 292, also crediting the number to Shatunovskaya committee. I will put 292 into the article for now, since it appears in more sources. If anyone has different information, let me know.

Another source [3] makes even more striking claim: Stalin had received a 100 yes votes and 1100 no votes. Stalin's people would then figure out everyone who voted "no" by their handwriting (they had to write in a candidate instead of the vote they were voting against) and those people would be executed during purges. I am not sure about the credibility of the claim and I am not including it because of that. Andris 01:11, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

In Simon Sebag Montefiore's "Stalin the Court of the Red Tsar" (p. 132) the author states that 166 ballots went missing and that Stalin received somewhere between 123 and 292 negative votes.130.237.175.198 07:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The huge Kirov's statue in Baku

I added some informations and a link about the huge Kirov's statue that dominated the panorama of the city of Baku from 1939 to 1991. Regards!

Virgilio 22:06, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Misspelling

"Chitye Prudi" as a station should be "Chistiye Prudy" or whatever. You're missing an S

repetitive sentences

In the first paragprah the last sentence is: "He became a Marxist and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1904. He was assassinated in 1934."

Next paragraph: "Becoming a Marxist, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1904."

Could we remove one of these? Anatoly larkin 02:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Sergei or Sergey?

title and picture caption say sergey, within the article it is sergei. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.219.142 (talk) 03:18, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Alleged

We are told of the possibility of a random act of violence. The assassin, Nikolaiyev, had a valid NKVD pass

and had arrranged for the guards in the corridors to disappear. He also arranged for Borisov, Kirov's personal body guard, to vanish. All this is hardly consistent with a private motive. A good account of Kirov's death is given by Conquest and Khrushchev, for that matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.230.157 (talk) 08:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

The article looks based on the sole point of view and theory of Stalin organizing the murder. Almost no place given to other points of view, even to the official one.Garret Beaumain (talk) 10:03, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Trivia

I have changed the trivia section into references in popular culture. I also removed the sentence "Kirov was a very popular figure during his reign in Leningrad" as it doesn't really fit anywhere and is hard to source. --TheCooperman (talk) 17:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Secret documents released

[4] But documents released on Tuesday by Russia's domestic intelligence agency -- including Nikolayev's diary, published with the permission of his son -- painted a picture of a disillusioned Communist Party functionary acting alone, out of bitterness and revenge.

Nikolayev had tried hard to rise to the top of the Leningrad Party hierarchy but instead was told to go and work at a factory in a lower position.

He decided to take revenge on Kirov after he was thrown out of the party for "breaching party discipline", denied treatment in a sanatorium despite having heart problems, and could no longer get food rations available to party apparatchiks.

"You can eat yourself now -- no money, no food," the father of two wrote in his diary. "For themselves, they (party leaders) hold garages with automobiles, for us they have sodden bread." LokiiT (talk) 02:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

bad article...

This whole kriminology here about the assasination is pretty useless... Let's just simply say that the case has never been fully solved. And whatever the real background of it all, the important point is that it was use as a pretext for the purges.

Also I'm rather amused by the positive portrait of Kirov (as an opponent of Stalin). In the german Wikipedia he is depicted as a hardliner, mass murderer and follower of Stalin...! :-) oh well...

Clearly there are issues with the articles (maybe there are just subjects for which the Wikipedia concept doesn't work...) I think there are more issues with the english version, mostly because of the style. Anyway. Maybe let's just try to be a bit more sober and neutral in depicting historical figures. Sometimes saying less is better. You know, it's not about making a script for a holliwood movie, where the hero has to be either good or bad [Or then at least I'd recommend to synchronize on which side the judgement falls between Wikipedia versions :-) !]. This here ought to be about history and real folks, not Hollywood and entertainment.

greetings, 212.171.245.69 (talk) 10:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

212.171.245.69 should use specific arguments, not broad statements. He should explain how Nikolayev caused the normal guards to vanish.