The assassination of which Soviet politician in 1934 triggered Stalin's purge of the Communist Party?
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Zinoviev but it was too late. In the 1930s other senior Communists, many of whom had been Stalin's allies were removed and many of them were executed or died in mysterious circumstances, including Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin. Joseph Stalin instigated a series of purges against senior members of the party, culminating in the Great Purge of 1935 to 1938, with the key processes known as Moscow Trials. There are theories that purges were initiated as a tool in Stalin's struggle for power. At the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (b) (February 1934) Sergei Kirov only
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union received three negative votes in the election to the Politburo showing himself to be the most popular Soviet leader while Stalin received 267 negative votes ranking him the least popular. According to Molotov's memoirs as well as other reports, a number of party members at the Congress had approached Kirov with the proposal that he run for the position of General Secretary against Stalin. Whether or not Stalin initiated the Purge as a response to opposition to him within the party and whether or not Stalin was personally behind the assassination of Kirov in December 1934 in order to remove