17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

[1] During the elections to the 17th Central Committee Stalin received a significant number (over a hundred, although the precise number is unknown) of negative votes, whereas only three delegates crossed out the name of the increasingly popular, Stalin-aligned Leningrad party boss, Sergei Kirov.

In public, Stalin was acclaimed, not merely as the leader of the party, but as a towering, universal genius in every human sphere.

All his former opponents spoke approvingly of him (other than Leon Trotsky, who had been exiled in 1929), and pledged their total support to the party line.

In addition, Khrushchev said that "of 1,966 delegates [to the 17th Congress] with either voting or advisory rights, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of anti-revolutionary crimes, i.e., decidedly more than a majority.

[4] On 1 December 1934, after the results of the 17th Party Congress, Sergei Kirov was shot and killed by Leonid Nikolaev.