Kirov, a murder that provided Joseph Stalinwith justification to
ramp up state terror. Nikolaev was a minor party official who blamed
Kirov and the party leadership for his failed life. The Russian
archives show that Nikolaev was detained twice with a loaded
weapon near Kirov’s residence and released. On 1 December 1934,
he shot Kirov in Smolny, the Leningrad Communist Partyhead-
quarters building. Kirov’s security detail arrived in time to arrest
Nikolaev, who had fainted after firing the fatal shots.
On hearing of the murder, Stalin and his subordinates took a train
to Leningrad. Nikolaev was personally interrogated by Stalin the day
following the murder. According to some witnesses, he implicated
NKVDofficers. He was then brutally interrogated by NKVD offi-
cers, and on 29 December he and 14 other defendants were shot fol-
lowing a short trial. In January 1935 his wife, sister, and remaining
friends were also shot.
Nikolaev most probably was used, but historians are not sure ex-
actly by whom. Most recent historians believe that Nikolaev was pro-
tected by senior NKVD officers, possibly service chief Genrykh
Yagoda, with Stalin’s approval. The archives, however, do not con-
tain enough evidence to prove Stalin and Yagoda planned the killing.
Other historians believe that Stalin would never have risked using a
man like Nikolaev, and that Yagoda would never have acted without
Stalin’s explicit directions.NIURINA, FAINA (1885–1938). A brilliant Jewish lawyer, educated
before 1917 in a school of liberal jurisprudence, Niurina joined the
procuracyfollowing the 1917 Revolution. Unlike many Soviet
prosecutors, such as Andrei Vyshinsky, she refused to allow the
NKVDto dictate verdicts, insisting on the independence of her of-
fice. Her opinions cost her her life. She was arrested on Vyshinsky’s
personal order in 1938, tried, and shot.NKGB (NARODNIY KOMMISSARIAT GOSUDARSTVENNOI BE-
ZOPASNOSTI).The People’s Commissariat of State Security, the
NKGB, was formed in June 1941 from the foreign intelligence and
domestic counterintelligenceelements of the NKVD. In 1946 the
NKGB was transformed into the MGB(Ministry of State Security).174 •NIURINA, FAINA (1885–1938)06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 174