On December 1st 1934 an event took place, which triggered the Great Purge of the party in the Soviet Union. Sergie Kirov, a member of the Politburo was mysteriously murdered by Nikolayev. This ignited the senseless arrest, deportation and execution of millions of citizens of the Soviet Union.
Kirov was Russian who was very popular, a very well spoken and sociable person and a possible rival to Stalin's position. Nikolayev, the assassin was stopped by the police earlier in the neighborhood and even though he was armed and had Kirov's daily movements on paper in his pocket, he was mysteriously released. On the day of the murder Stalin ordered that anybody accused of terrorism must be investigated immediately and executed right away after being convicted. Appeal or right of defense was forbidden. Nikolayev was secretly tried and executed on December 29, 1934.
This lead to the arrest and of long prison sentences of 19 members of the old left opposition, including Zinoviev, Kamenev. Stalin claimed that the old left opposition with a "Leningrad Opposition center" was conspiring against him and the communist party and that Kirov murder was connected to this. Following this the NKVD arrested other members of the Old Left Opposition. The Purge of the party did not and here. Letters were sent to all branches all over the USSR checking the reliability of members. Members began to accuse each other of being supporters of Trotsky or of Zinoviev. .
There were purges as early as 1928 where engineers, industrialists, farmers and state farm officials who were put on a public show trial and they were either executed or sent to prison. Charges ranged from Sabotage to political crimes, to spying. The horrific purges continued all the way through to 1953. .
How exactly were the innocent Russians picked up and taken to their deaths prison or deported too far off places? Tanya Shabarshenkova says, "My grandfather, they came for him at night.
