Who Killed Kirov?: The Kremlin's Greatest Mystery - Hardcover

In order fully to understand the murder, according to Knight, the reader must learn what kind of man Kirov was, how he rose to power within the Soviet political system, and how Stalin came to dominate that system. Consequently, she devotes much of the book to Kirov's personal story, his role in forging the Bolshevik regime, and his relationships with key party leaders. Although Kirov's murder and its tragic aftermath remain the narrative's focal point, Knight successfully broadens her readers' understanding of the entire Stalinist era.

A research associate at George Washington University and author of two additional studies of Russian politics, Knight supplements her 270-page study with maps, illustrations, chronologies, a glossary of names, diagrams of the Soviet political hierarchy, and ample notes. Well researched and thoroughly documented, Who Killed Kirov? remains accessible to the general reader. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack

Kirov was charismatic and approachable, so popular that many Russians believed he was the only real threat to Stalin's power. Who murdered him, and why? Stalin, disaffected political opponents, a jealous husband? And if Kirov had lived, would the Soviet Union have become a totalitarian police state, or something quite different? Scholars throughout the world see Kirov as the key to understanding Stalin and for years have argued about various pieces of the story-but the necessary evidence has eluded them. Now Amy Knight has combed the recently opened Russian archives to reconstruct this haunting crime and analyze its impact on the Russian people. The result is at once a breathtaking murder mystery and an important piece of scholarship that sheds new light on Stalin's politics.