Leonid Vladimirovich Nikolayev (Russian: Леони́д Влади́мирович Никола́ев, August 13, 1878 – October 11, 1942) was a Russian/Soviet pianist, composer and pedagogue. Individual guards had their Party cards temporarily taken away and were threatened with expulsion. Nikolaev was a troubled young Soviet Communist Party member in Leningrad. Zaporozhets had to use his influence to get him released. Leonid Nikolayev was born in 1904. His compositional output includes symphonic works, choral works, string quartets, and solo works for violin, cello, and piano. Several NKVD officers from the Leningrad branch were convicted of negligence for not adequately protecting Kirov, and were sentenced to prison terms of up to ten years.
However, soon after entering the building he was arrested. On 15 October 1934, he was arrested by the NKVD, allegedly for loitering around the Smolny Institute, where Kirov had his offices. [3] As former Soviet official and author Alexander Barmine noted, "the negligence of the NKVD in protecting such a high party official was without precedent in the Soviet Union".[4]. Psychologically unbalanced, he imagined himself a new Zheliabov, and planned the murder of Kirov as an important political act. Nikolayev joined the Communist Party and worked in Murmansk. For many years Nikolayev was a professor of piano at the Leningrad Conservatoire, and was for a short and unsuccessful period director of the institution. He questioned Nikolaev at length. Leonid Nikolaev (1904–1934) was the assassin of Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Leningrad branch of the Communist Party. On 1st December, 1934, Nikolayev, got past the guards and was able to shoot Kirov dead. Nikolayev was 31. Nikolayev was born in Kiev in 1878. Some Soviet sources later argued that Nikolaev did have a permit to carry a loaded handgun. [10], Other speakers rose to condemn the Opposition: "The Central Committee must be pitiless - the Party must be purged..the record of every member must be scrutinized..." No one at the meeting mentioned the theory of fascist agents. [10] Later, Stalin even used the Kirov assassination to eliminate the remainder of the Opposition leadership against him, accusing Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Abram Prigozhin and others who had stood with Kirov in opposing Stalin (or simply failed to acquiesce to Stalin's views), of having connections with Nikolaev and facilitating the assassination. Peter Chagin, a prominent Party official and close comrade of Kirov, has told the author that several attempts were made on Kirov's life in 1934. Unemployed, he soon ran short of money, and blamed the Party for his troubles. His wife worked at the Smolny, and unsubstantiated rumours surfaced that she was having an affair with Kirov. Once the guard's suspicions were aroused by a passerby who tried to get too close. For a second time the same loaded revolver was taken from him. Leonid Vladimirovich Nikolayev was a Russian/Soviet pianist, composer and pedagogue. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Sergei Taneyev and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov. He was a small, thin man, about five feet tall; even as an adult he showed the effects of childhood malnutrition. In 1934 he was expelled from the party for a minor offence.
[4], Initially, a Communist Party communiqué reported that Nikolaev's guilt had been established, and that he had confessed that he acted at the behest of a 'fascist power', receiving money from an unidentified 'foreign consul' in Leningrad. Subscribe to our Spartacus Newsletter and keep up to date with the latest articles. Yagoda assigned the task to Vania Zaporozhets, one of his trusted lieutenants in the NKVD. Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Classical Musicians, Free scores by Leonid Nikolayev (pianist), International Music Score Library Project, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leonid_Nikolayev_(pianist)&oldid=971171987, Articles containing Russian-language text, Articles with International Music Score Library Project links, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. With Stalin's alleged approval, the NKVD had previously withdrawn the remaining guards manning the security desk at Smolny. The strange liberalism of the Leningrad NKVD officials, who again let Nikolaev go, aroused serious suspicions among Kirov's guards. Some tried to protest, but they were told at the NKVD that it wasn't their business. He became close friends with Shostakovich—Shostakovich "admired him as a first-class musician and a man of great wisdom and learning"[3] and also said of him: "He trained not simply pianists, but in the first place thinking musicians. This was Nikolaev. We do not know what steps Kirov took after the conversation with Borisov.
[9] Barmine further claimed 104 other defendants, who were already in prison at the time of Kirov's assassination, and who had no demonstrable connection to Nikolaev, were found guilty of complicity in the 'fascist plot' against Kirov, and were summarily executed. A few hours later, Yagoda instructed Zaporozhets to let Nikolaev go. Zaporozhets provided him with a pistol and gave him instructions to kill Kirov in the Smolny Institute in Leningrad. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Sergei Taneyev and Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov. Leonid Nikolaev (1904–1934) was the assassin of Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Leningrad branch of the Communist Party.