In Moscow on February 27, 2015, a lone gunman killed Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and a powerful and charismatic opposition leader who stood as an alternative to Vladimir Putin. In Leningrad on December 1, 1934, a lone gunman killed Sergey Kirov, a powerful Bolshevik who stood as an alternative to Josef Stalin.
Stalin’s involvement in the murder was denied, and never proved. It goes without saying that the Kremlin also was quick to deny Putin’s involvement in Nemtsov’s death.
The parallels are worth considering. The murder of Kirov marked the beginning of the great purges, the period in which high-level elites were so thoroughly “cleansed” that the USSR stood unprepared for Hitler’s invasion.
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