1/ The assassination of Charlie Kirk has prompted some to make comparisons with the death in 1934 of Sergei Kirov – a pivotal event in Soviet history. Who was Kirov, and what lessons can be drawn from his demise? ⬇️ 
2/ Kirov was a veteran revolutionary – an 'Old Bolshevik' – who, at the time of his death, was the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad and a member of the Politburo. He was assassinated on 1 December 1934 by Leonid Nikolaev, an expelled party member with a grudge.
3/ There is still a lot of uncertainty around Kirov's death. While Nikolaev was certainly the assassin, later Soviet politicians and historians suggested that Stalin might have had a hand in it. Kirov was a popular Party figure with his own power base, independent of Stalin.
4/ Nikolaev was quickly caught and executed only 29 days after the murder. Although it was initially claimed to have been part of a plot by Fascist agents, Stalin seems to have soon realised that it could be used to dispose of his political rivals and opponents.
5/ The death of Kirov sparked a wave of purges directed against supporters of the exiled Trotsky and those whom Stalin labelled the 'Right Opposition'. It led to a series of show trials of prominent Old Bolshevik politicians and the mass terror of the Great Purge of 1936-38.
6/ Stalin emerged as the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union, with all internal opposition crushed and at the centre of a cult of personality ruthlessly enforced by the state.
7/ Comparable events happened in Italy with the assassination of socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti by Fascists on 10 June 1924. At the time, Italy was still a multi-party democracy with functioning courts, and the killers were caught, convicted and (briefly) imprisoned.
8/ The murder led to months of political turmoil with the opposition boycotting the Italian parliament in protest. In the end, Mussolini declared defiantly that he was proud to claim moral responsibility for fascist violence (though without admitting guilt for Matteotti's death).
9/ He took the opportunity to transform Italy rapidly from a failing democracy into an overt dictatorship with himself as Duce (Leader). Laws were passed by the Fascist-dominated parliament to ban all other parties, abolish local autonomy, and enable Mussolini to rule by decree.
10/ Nobody died in the 27 February 1933 Reichstag fire, but it represented a symbolic assassination of German democracy. The event was blamed on Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe and was used by the German Right to ban the German Communist Party in the elections of 5 March.
11/ While the repression that followed the fire was driven by the Nazis, who controlled the police as part of a democratically elected right-wing coalition government, it was authorised by conservative president Paul von Hindenburg on the advice of Chancellor Adolf Hitler.
12/ Although it was to be a foundation of the Nazis' rule, the decree was actually drafted by the right-wing German National People's Party (DNVP). The party was forced by the Nazis to dissolve itself only five months later.
13/ The decree suspended many of the Germans' civil liberties, including habeas corpus, freedom of expression and of the press, freedom of assembly, and protection against state eavesdropping. They were not restored for all Germans until 1990.
14/ In all three cases, the assassinations – actual or symbolic – provided regimes in the process of authoritarian consolidation to seize additional powers, destroy political rivals and impose fully-fledged authoritarian rule over their countries.
15/ While the Soviet Union was already a collective dictatorship, Italy and Germany were both failing democracies with authoritarian leaders whose followers dominated their respective parliaments. The assassinations enabled them to make a final push to end democracy. /end
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