Editing Sergei Kirov (section)

===Aftermath===
{{also|Kremlin Plot}}
Kirov was cremated and his ashes interred in the [[Kremlin Wall necropolis]] in a [[state funeral]], with Stalin and other prominent members of the [[CPSU]] personally carrying his [[coffin]]. After Kirov's death, Stalin called for swift punishment of the traitors and those found negligent in Kirov's death. Nikolayev was tried alone and secretly by [[Vasili Ulrikh]], Chairman of the [[Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR]]. He was sentenced to death by shooting on 29 December 1934, and the sentence was carried out that very night. The [[Soviet government]], led by Stalin, stated that their investigation proved that the assassin was acting on behalf of a secret [[Zinovievist]] group.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Furr|first=Grover|date=2017-12-11|title=Yezhov vs. Stalin: The Causes of the Mass Repressions of 1937–1938 in the USSR|url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jlso/20/3/article-p325_4.xml|journal=[[Journal of Labor and Society]]|volume=20|issue=3|pages=325–347|doi=10.1163/24714607-02003004 }}</ref> The hapless Commissar Borisov died the day after Kirov's assassination, allegedly falling from a moving truck while riding with a group of NKVD agents. According to Orlov, Borisov's wife was committed to an [[insane asylum]], while Nikolayev's mysterious friend and alleged provocateur, who had supplied him with the revolver and money, was later shot on Stalin's personal orders.<ref name="Orlov" />

Several NKVD officers from the Leningrad branch were convicted of negligence for not adequately protecting Kirov and sentenced to prison terms of up to ten years. According to Barmine, none of the NKVD officers were executed in the aftermath, and none actually served time in prison. Instead, they were transferred to executive posts in Stalin's [[Gulag]] labour camps for a period of time—in effect, a demotion.<ref name="Barmine, Alexander 1945 p. 252" /> According to [[Nikita Khrushchev]], the same NKVD officers were later shot in 1937.<ref name="Khrushchev, N.S. 1989 p. 21">Khrushchev, N.S. (1989) ''[[On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences]]'', London, p. 21</ref> [[Lajos Magyar]], a [[Hungary|Hungarian]] communist and refugee from the fall of the [[Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919]], was falsely accused of complicity in Kirov's assassination. Magyar was convicted as a "[[Zinovievist|Zinovievite]]-Terrorist" and sent to a Gulag, where he died in 1940.

A Communist Party [[communiqué]] initially reported that Nikolayev had confessed his guilt as an assassin in the pay of a "[[fascist]] power," having received money from an unidentified "[[Consulate|foreign consul]]" in Leningrad.<ref name="Barmine, Alexander 1945 p. 248">[[#Barmine|Barmine]], p. 248</ref> The same author claims 104 defendants who were already in prison at the time of Kirov's assassination, and who had no demonstrable connection to Nikolayev, were found guilty of complicity in the "fascist plot" against Kirov, and summarily executed;<ref name="Barmine, Alexander 1945 p. 248" /> however, a few days later, during a subsequent Communist Party meeting of the Moscow District, the party secretary announced in a speech that Nikolayev had been personally interrogated by Stalin the day after the assassination, something unheard-of for a party leader such as Stalin to have done. He said: "Comrade Stalin personally directed the investigation of Kirov's assassination. He questioned Nikolayev at length. The leaders of the Opposition placed the gun in Nikolayev's hand!"<ref name="Barmine, Alexander 1945 p. 249">[[#Barmine|Barmine]], p. 249</ref>

Other speakers duly rose to purge the Communist Party of any opposition: "The Central Committee must be pitiless—the Party must be purged... the record of every member must be scrutinized...." No one at the meeting mentioned the initial theory that fascist agents had been responsible for the assassination.<ref name="Barmine, Alexander 1945 p. 249" /> Barmine asserts Stalin even used the Kirov assassination to eliminate the remainder of the Opposition leadership, accusing [[Grigory Zinoviev]], [[Lev Kamenev]], Abram Prigozhin, and others who had stood with Kirov in opposing Stalin (or who had simply failed to acquiesce to Stalin's views), of being "morally responsible" for Kirov's murder, and therefore guilty of complicity.<ref name="Barmine, Alexander 1945 p. 248" /> Barmine also claimed that Stalin arranged the murder with the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, who armed Nikolayev and sent him to assassinate Kirov.<ref>[[#Barmine|Barmine]], p. 55</ref>