Leonid Vasilevich Nikolaev (10 May 1904 – 29 December 1934) was the Russian assassin of Sergei Kirov, the First Secretary of Leningrad City Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Borisov, one of the first to come upon the scene, was immediately arrested; he died the day after Kirov's assassination, allegedly as the result of a fall from a truck in which he was being transported by the NKVD.
On 28–29 December 1934, Nikolaev and 13 other people as members of the "counterrevolutionary group" were tried by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR under Vasili Ulrikh's chairmanship.
[5][6][7] 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.
Barmine claimed they never served their prison sentences; instead, they were transferred to executive posts in Stalin's labour camps for a period of time (in effect, a demotion).
[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.
According to Amy Knight, Nikolaev's wife, Milda Draule, was noted for her physical plainness, while Kirov was known to prefer liaisons with ballerinas and other Soviet women of notable beauty and grace.
[12] Kirov's death was an important turning point in the period of increasing political repression that led up to Stalin's Great Purge.