Word: leningraders
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...Soviet Union's small Protestant minority is not squabbling; it is growing. Stadiums in Moscow and Leningrad have been filled for revival meetings, and later this month 850 activists from around the country will meet to plan evangelistic strategy. Soviet Muslims are likewise heartened. "A revival of Islam is taking place," says Hajji Rais, the muezzin of Moscow. He notes, however, that his mosque is alone in serving 600,000 believers in the area...
...late 1934, Leonid Nikolayev, a disgruntled ex-Bolshevik, showed up outside the Smolny Institute in Leningrad, where Kirov's office was located. Nikolayev was arrested, probably because he looked suspicious. He was searched and found to be carrying a gun. Yet he was set free. The only conclusion is that he was released on orders from higher-ups in the same organization who had sent him to commit a terrorist act. A short time afterward, Nikolayev penetrated Smolny and shot Kirov as he was coming up the stairway. Kirov's bodyguard had lagged behind...
Something else I know. When Stalin came to Leningrad to investigate Kirov's murder, he ordered the commissar who had been personally responsible for guarding Kirov that day brought to him for interrogation. The truck taking him to see Stalin crashed, and the commissar was killed...
...have no doubt that Stalin was behind the plot. Kirov had turned the Leningrad party organization into a good, active group. He was very popular, so a blow aimed at him would hurt the party and the people. That's probably why he was marked for sacrifice: his death provided a pretext for shaking up the country, alarming the people so that they would accept the terror and let Stalin get rid of the undesirables and "enemies of the people...
Another time, Stalin asked me to come to the Kremlin. His face was, as usual, absolutely expressionless. He looked at me and said, "You know, Antipov has been arrested." Nikolai Antipov was a prominent politician from Leningrad...