Buy used:
$40.30
$26.05 delivery January 7 - 29. Details
Used: Very Good | Details
Sold by Libup Books!
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comment: Above average condition with very minor signs of use and unobstructed text.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Added to

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Other sellers on Amazon
Used (2) from   $40.30
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Who Killed Kirov?: The Kremlin's Greatest Mystery Paperback – January 1, 2000

by Amy Knight (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 14 ratings
See all formats and editions
An exciting analysis of Russia's crime of the century, the assassination of Stalin's greatest rival.

The 1934 murder of the charismatic politician Sergei Kirov sparked Stalin's brutal purges, and speculation about it still fascinates the Russians. Who killed Kirov, and why? In Russia, conspiracy theories about Kirov have abounded, and scholars throughout the world have tackled various pieces of the story--but definitive evidence has eluded them. Now Amy Knight has combed the recently opened Russian archives to reconstruct this fascinating crime and analyze its effect on the Russian people. The result is at once an intriguing murder mystery and a major piece of scholarship that sheds new light on the terrors of Stalin.

Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Hill & Wang Pub
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 2000
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0809097036
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0809097036
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details
Books%20with%20Buzz
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A gripping portrait of one of the grimmest periods in modern Russian history." -- Anthony Day, Los Angeles Times

"Meticulously mining post-glasnost archival materials . . . Knight navigates waters choked with decades of Kremlin murk . . . Wonderfully evocative." -- Katharine Whittemore, Salon

About the Author

Amy Knight is the author of Spies Without Cloaks, Beria, and The KGB. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hill & Wang Pub; First Edition (January 1, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0809097036
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0809097036
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 14 ratings

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
14 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Joseph R. Calamia
4.0 out of 5 stars KILLING KIROV
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2009
Verified Purchase
"Who Killed Kirov" by Amy Knight is a superbly researched biography and study of the 1934 murder of Leningrad's Party Leader and Stalin's "right-hand" man , Sergei Kirov.
The author's premise is focused on the fact that Stalin himself plotted the murder of his upcoming rival but did so specifically to justify the onslaught of his infamous purges of the 1930's.

Although this theory is well known with Russian historians, Ms. Knight brings it up on the stage of reality and deeper understanding. The book also has a superb spread of apparently rare photographs that help to enhance the research and interest in the subject matter.

Sometimes, the story line seems to "bog down" due to the extensive web of historical facts and uncovered records but none the less...it is a fine piece of historical intrigue and research. Ms. Knight's contribution to Russian history is but one more addition to the great puzzle of the former Soviet Union and its people who were trapped inside..."THE BELLY OF THE BEAR."
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jeffrey Huntington
4.0 out of 5 stars Just the facts, ma'am.
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2015
Verified Purchase
It's pretty obvious to everyone that Stalin had Kirov shot out of jealousy, but the hard evidence is scant, and Stalin didn't do it in his usual way (a kangaroo trial, an absurd "confession," and a formal execution.) In fact, the Kirov murder was used as the excuse for the show trials and the terror, so there is still some mystery as to why this happened as it did.

The historical importance of the Kirov murder is enormous--it shaped WWII and the cold war, right up to the Khrushchev era. Knight gives such forensic evidence as there is, without much speculation. It's a subject on which it's easy to get carried away by partisan fervor.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Mtutuzeli Nyoka
3.0 out of 5 stars Like many of his contemporaries his life is typical rags ...
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2014
There have been other major political upheavals before the Russian October, 1917, revolution. The French revolution may have been more colourful and more romantic. But no other revolution can match that of the Russians in the nobility of its conception, in the brilliance of its ideals, in its violence, and in its tragedy,

It is a mystery to the ordinary mind, though academics will continue to speculate, how a movement once just a dream of political outcasts became such a giant as to contest the mastery of the world. Was it due to the revolutionary rhetoric: ‘workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain.’? Was it its ‘vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world’? Whatever the reasons were, the communist party became the most revolutionary movement in the history of man.

It was in the heart of the gigantic political body that Sergei Mironovich Kirov lived, flourished and perished. Like many of his contemporaries his life is typical rags to hero fairy tale. He was born on the 27th of March, 1886, to a peasant family. His father abandoned his family when Kirov was five years old. His mother soon died of tuberculosis. He had to rely on the largesse of others to receive an education. He was soon ensnared in the political ferment of in Russia that heralded the Revolution in 1905.

He joined the workers’ demonstrations that followed Bloody Sunday in January 1905, when tsarist troops mowed down a demonstrating crowd killing about 200 people. He was jailed several times before the October revolution of 1917. With the communists in power he served the Bolshevik army that brutally crushed all resistance. He rose within the party until he became a member of the politburo, and later the secretary of the Central Committee.

He therefore shared the stage with some of the most fabled figures of the Russian revolution. He worked with Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, the three who embodied the essence of the revolution. He served with the other architects of the Russian state Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin. He was acquainted with one of the most eminent Russian writers, Emil Gorky. He knew the great General Zhukov. There are few to match these great men on the Russian pantheon. Thus to dig into the murder of Kirov is to cast a light into the lives and intrigue of very powerful men.

Sergei Kirov was shot in the neck on the 1 December, 1934, as he walked into his offices in Leningrad by Leonid Nikolaev. Kirov’s bodyguard, Borisov, who had been walking ‘too far behind’ his master, a grave breach of discipline, to even see the shooting, died a day after the crime. Did Nikolaev have a personal motive or did he have accomplices? Was Kirov’s murder an attack on Stalin and communism? Or did Stalin have Kirov killed because of his rising popularity in the party, and later used his murder as a pretext to wipe out his party enemies,

Interestingly, Nikolaev never tried to escape after the shooting: instead he was found next to his victim unconscious. The assassination of the Kirov triggered a catalogue of repressive measures. Nikolaev, after several months of torture confessed to a litany of crimes against the state and was shot. His mother, wife and siblings were also arrested and executed.

This was followed by a series of show trials in which many with even the flimsiest of connections with Nikolaev were arrested, charged and shot. Many of the old Bolsheviks were imprisoned, and the common charge was complicity in the murder of Kirov. The old guard of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin after being charged ‘with having a moral responsibility’ in Kirov’s murder met with the same fate. Others committed suicide in despair. Even the exiled Trotsky was charged with Kirov’s murder, and sentenced to death in-abstentia. Trotsky was later killed in Mexico by a Soviet agent, and most of his family members were murdered.

The executions slowly gathered force like an avalanche, and were a prelude to the Great Purge. The latter according to Whitaker Chambers in his book ‘Witness’ ‘was in the most literal sense a massacre. It was like one of those western jack-rabbit hunts in which a whole countryside forming a vast circle that finally closes in on its victims, and then clubs them to death. The purgees, like the rabbits, had no possible chance of escape’.

The reader initially flinches from the violence and the brutality in Stalin’s Russia. It precedes the murder of Kirov, and continues without respite after it. The book fails to resolve the mystery that it set out to answer. Despite pointing a finger at Josef Stalin for the murder and even arguing compellingly about his culpability, it does not provide conclusive evidence to support its thesis.

Yet it raises a few interesting issues, and answers an even broader question. It points the finger at the powerful men who were part of the Soviet leadership and were themselves later purged. In other words the writer is saying that Kirov was not just a victim but he was also a culprit.

‘He had after all been an accomplice in the crimes that the young Bolshevik regime perpetrated upon its people, and he had contributed to Stalin’s rise to power’. The author asks therefore if the communist old guard with their unquestioning and mindless support of Stalin create a cult around his leadership, and thus generously feed the monster that destroyed them, and later soaked the entire Russian landscape in blood.

Who killed Kirov is a well written historical novel, and is a compelling narrative of the Kirov murder. It is also a well-researched analysis of the psychology of the Stalin years. There are no heroes in the story, but only villains and their victims. The writer portrays Stalin as the predecessor to the brutal autocrats who continue to haunt and hound humanity to this day. The book transcends the goriness of the violence by posing questions that the entire world should be asking itself. What it depicts seethes on in both rich and poor countries even in the 21st century.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
taking a rest
2.0 out of 5 stars Who doesn't know?
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2000
Unless as one writer suggests, new documentation with the credibility to give the information credence is introduced, this book offers very little in any event. There were some photographs that I had not seen in other books, and the floor plan and the alleged positioning of security was interesting. For this book to suggest this killing has the same mystery surrounding the Kennedy assassination is absurd.
There are many who believe that Kennedy was not solely the victim of Oswald, and while one can speculate who actually pulled the trigger in the case of the murder of Kirov, it is the less important part of the incident, what Soviet History might have been under Kirov is the story.
Kirov embodied many things that Stalin did not and could not emulate; he was charismatic, "The People" truly liked the man, and he was not the disfigured paranoid maniac that was Stalin. When the fateful vote took place and Kirov had clearly become a rival to Stalin's power, it was only a question of how soon he would die, and how large the purge that followed his death would be. It would indeed be massive, for how else was Stalin to show how devastated and full of revenge he was, for the death of his "friend" Kirov? Stalin had no friends.
Stalin wanted Kirov dead, he ordered the killing, and whether the NKVD, or as is likely the poor guy they picked up and pinned it on actually did the killing, the killer is secondary. The story here is that Stalin could carry out the hit on Kirov, knowing he would be suspect number one, and further being 100% confident that no individual or group would accuse him, that is part of the interesting History here. The bloodbath that followed was just Stalin getting rid of more of his "enemies" real or mostly imagined.
If there were a book written for the purpose of identifying every killer Stalin employed, the number of books would run into the tens of millions. The fact that he could kill on such an unprecedented scale, that he could remain in control, that he managed to always have enough believers/supporters/future victims to back him is what fascinates. Kirov may have been the marquee kill of Stalin's reign, but he was just that, one more body
I would like to read a well written historically based work of fiction that posits what would have happened had Kirov not been killed, what if Stalin was blamed, what if Kirov took control of the former USSR. That is where the interest lies.
The title of this book is bordering on misleading. Nothing inside the book is as intriguing as the question asked on the cover wishes you to believe.
17 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Mark
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in Canada on April 10, 2015
Verified Purchase
Great book, if you like history.
Report