Agranov found that Kotolynov and some others of this group had met for discussion in 1934 because the local Party Institute was talking of producing a history of the Leningrad Komsomol. These meetings, encouraged by Kirov, were quite open and under Party control, but unorthodox views had been expressed. Agranov built this up into a “conspiracy.” Nine other men who had been present, including another former member of the Komsomol Central Committee, Rumyantsev, were arrested. They were under arrest, or some of them were, by 6 December.31 “Severe” interrogation methods were employed.
Even so, most of the young oppositionists refused to capitulate. This method of dealing with Party members was new, and they could not have had the feeling of hopelessness which later set in in similar circumstances. On the contrary, the whole thing must have seemed a dangerous and horrible lunacy of the interrogators, which might be overruled at any moment. By 12–13 December,32 Agranov nevertheless had one or two confessions ready. These connected the former oppositionist Komsomols of Leningrad with Kamenev and Zinoviev, who had met their former supporters once or twice in an innocent way.33 Agranov’s report to Stalin represented this as Kamenev and Zinoviev going back on their various promises to “disarm” politically and in effect as a sort of conspiracy.
When this report came before the Politburo, in “an atmosphere of extreme tension,”34 the majority still supported the liberalization envisaged by Kirov. Stalin accepted this warmly, but added that it should be amended at one point: since the opposition had failed to disarm, the Party should in self-defense undertake a check of all former Trotskyites and Zinovievites. This was agreed to with some hesitation, and as to the assassination itself, it was to be left to the investigating authorities.35
Before the middle of the month, G. E. Evdokimov, former Secretary of the Central Committee, Bakayev, who had been Zinoviev’s head of the Leningrad GPU, and others were arrested. Zinoviev then drafted a letter to Yagoda saying that he was disturbed by these arrests and asking to be summoned so that he could establish that he had no connection with the murder. Kamenev dissuaded him from sending it.36
On 16 December, Pauker, Head of the Operations Department of the NKVD, and Bulanov, Yagoda’s personal assistant, arrested Kamenev, and at the same time Molchanov, Head of the Secret Political Department, and Volovich, Deputy Head of the Operations Department,fn3 pulled in Zinoviev.37 It says something for the respect which leading Old Bolshevik oppositionists even then commanded in the Party that the routine “search” was dispensed with.38
For the first four or five days after the murder, the press had been full of the demands of workers’ meetings for revenge, accounts of Kirov’s life, descriptions of his lying in state and his funeral, listings of executed “White Guard” terrorists, and so on. Then came, for a week or ten days, a curious pause. But now, on 17 December, the Moscow Committee of the Party passed a resolution to the effect that “loathsome, hateful agents of the class enemy, foul dregs of the former Zinoviev anti-Party group, have torn Comrade Kirov from our midst,” the first public reference to the alleged political feelings behind the murder.39 The Leningrad Committee, which had just “elected” Andrei Zhdanov as Kirov’s replacement (on 16 December), passed a resolution in almost identical terms.
As yet, no NKVD announcement had directly blamed the assassination on anyone but Nikolayev. The “White Guards” had been vaguely charged with “terrorism.” On 21 December, it was at last officially stated that Kirov had been murdered by a “Leningrad Center,” headed by Kotolynov, and consisting of him, Nikolayev, and six others—all of them categorized as former members of the Zinoviev opposition who had “at various times been expelled from the Party,” though mostly restored to membership after statements of solidarity with the Party Line.40 Six other accomplices were also implicated.
On the following day, a list was given for the first time of the arrested Zinovievite leaders, with a decision on the conduct of their cases.
There were distinguished names among them: Zinoviev and Kamenev, formerly members of the Politburo; G. E. Evdokimov, formerly member of the Secretariat; other former members and candidate members of the Central Committee—Zalutsky, who had formed with Molotov and Shlyapnikov the first Bolshevik Committee in Petrograd after the February Revolution; Fedorov; Kuklin; Safarov.41 For the moment, a partial accusation went forward. Regarding seven of those arrested, including Zinoviev, Kamenev, Zalutsky, and Safarov, it was announced that the NKVD, “lacking sufficient data for bringing them before a court,” would take them before a Special Board, with a view to sending them into administrative exile. With the others, headed by Bakayev, “further investigation” would take place. It was a typical Stalin move—suitable for gradually getting his colleagues and the Party used to the idea of Zinoviev’s guilt, and at the same time complicated and confusing enough to mask or blur his real intent.
Of the fifteen now mentioned, ten were to appear in the first ZinovievKamenev Trial the following month, together with nine not previously named.
On 27 December the formal accusation against the Nikolayev “group” was published. Now fourteen in number, they had allegedly been working since August, keeping a watch on Kirov’s flat and office, and deducing his usual movements. “Witnesses” were mentioned—Nikolayev’s wife, Milda Draule; his brother; and others. The conspirators were accused of having planned to kill Stalin, Molotov, and Kaganovich in addition to Kirov. And Nikolayev was also said to have been passing anti-Soviet material to an unspecified foreign consul, who later turned out to be the Latvian Bisseneks, though the NKVD is said to have originally favored his Finnish colleague.42 The already executed “White Guards” were vaguely worked in through connections Nikolayev was said to have formed with “Denikinists.”
“Documentary evidence” was mentioned, including a diary of Nikolayev’s and statements he had prepared. Apparently these showed clearly that he had no accomplices. It could not be totally suppressed at this stage, as too many uninitiated investigators and others seem to have seen it. So the official account, mentioning the diary, says that it was a forgery designed to give the impression that there was no conspiracy, but only a protest against the “unjust treatment of individuals,”43 or, as a later and fuller version has it:
The accused Nikolayev prepared several documents (a diary, declarations addressed to various institutions, etc.) in which he tried to represent his crime as a personal manifestation of despair and discontent arising from the aggravation of his material situation and a protest against the unjust attitude of certain members of the Government toward a living person.44
Three volumes of testimony are cited, each of them at least 200 pages long, including various confessions.45 From all this it might have been expected that the prosecution could have held an open trial. It did not do so. On 28 and 29 December, a court presided over by the ubiquitous Ulrikh sat behind closed doors.
For the more important of Nikolayev’s alleged accomplices seem still to have refused to confess in spite of severe interrogation.46 There were rumors, to put it no higher, that fellow prisoners had seen Kotolynov at the time of his interrogation, badly scarred and beaten.47 But he and the other Zinovievite ex-Komsomols are said to have resisted to the end. The published announcement of their “trial” reported the conspirators as saying that their motive for killing Kirov was to replace the leadership with Zinoviev and Kamenev.48 Nikolayev and all the others were sentenced to death and executed on 29 December.