The Congress of Victors Mystery: Did Stalin Lose to Kirov? - Noj Rants Reaction

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Everyone, we're doing another Nodge Rant video. This one's called the Congress of Victors mystery.

[00:00:06]Did Stalin lose to Karov? Kirov?

[00:00:11]Some Soviet history, which I uh will not be very familiar with.

[00:00:17]As we've done maybe one or two videos prior in the past of Nodge Rants. Good channel.

[00:00:23]Underrated channel, I would say, in terms of Soviet history.

[00:00:27]Um I did do a little bit of homework on this just to kind of get my grounds, but not going to prepare me for this at all.

[00:00:35]Uh the Congress of Victors >> [clears throat] >> was basically is it like almost like an election of some sort of and this is after Stalin's first five-year plan, which um you know, at least in Soviet Russia and then even Soviet China or Communist China, they dictate their government in five-year plans.

[00:01:01]Um in terms of like goals and to accomplish and I don't know, structure.

[00:01:08]So, yeah, let's jump in and see all the things. There's a famous legend that at the 17th Communist Party Congress in 1934, nicknamed the Congress of Victors, when it came time to elect the Central Committee, Stalin received a surprise defeat.

[00:01:28]Which would be interesting, right?

[00:01:29]Because that would mean he's been in power what, 12 years? Something like that. As per usual, the Congress goers were voting on a prearranged list of nominees. As was the custom, each voter would be given a copy of this list, on which they could cross out names. And if any person had their name crossed out on 50% or more of the ballots cast, he or she was defeated.

[00:01:54]Ah.

[00:01:55]Now, almost never did anyone actually reach the 50% threshold, but as a result of this practice, the votes served as a kind of prestige ranking of the leading party figures. Stalin and Co. usually had their names crossed out the least amount of times. Well, waning party figures were crossed out more.

[00:02:15]And the result >> So, it's like a popularity contest of the of the party. here weren't too surprising. Every single candidate on the list still passed easily.

[00:02:24]But, as the story goes, the result was upsetting because Stalin did not receive the most votes.

[00:02:31]Uh-oh. I would not want to be that person that did. Sergei Kirov did. Oh, no.

[00:02:37]According to one theory popularized by So, that's what this all means. Okay.

[00:02:42]Robert Conquest, Roy Medvedev, and others, this was a subtle protest, an indication that Stalin was actually not as popular as he would have hoped, and that some in the party potentially wanted to have Kirov replace him.

[00:02:57]Thus, Stalin responded to this threat by having Kirov assassinated So, this is the theory that Stalin got rid of Kirov.

[00:03:05]some 10 months later, catalyzing the Great Terror, during which much of the Congress of Victors would find themselves shot as well. Geez.

[00:03:18]So, it becomes a trend.

[00:03:20]Quite a lot could be said about the Kirov murder mystery, but today I want to focus in on just this one part of it.

[00:03:27]Was Stalin outvoted by Kirov at the Congress, thus giving Stalin a motive for revenge?

[00:03:36]The road to the Congress had certainly been a tumultuous one. The chaotic process of collectivization, mass famines, rebellions, and internal leadership battles had all shaken the party to its core.

[00:03:50]Notably, only a little over a year prior, Martemyan Ryutin had circulated an anti-Stalin platform among the party, and he and his supporters now sat in prison. But, the message the party now sought to convey was that they had made it out of the woods. They had survived.

[00:04:08]Socialism was coming. Unity had been achieved. The annual party congress hadn't actually met in 3 and 1/2 years by this point, the longest interval >> The annual congress has not met in 3 years. Nice.

[00:04:22]>> so yet. But, now that it was here, it was planned to be a true celebration of victory. And for Stalin, what a victory lap it was. The cult of personality was in full swing. Thoroughly defeated rivals, tenuously holding on to their party memberships, were giving self-flagellating speeches.

[00:04:42]The congress itself would be held from January 26th to February 10th, with the Central Committee vote to take place on the evening of the 9th, and then announced the next day at closing.

[00:04:56]At the top of the congress, Stalin gave a 5-hour keynote address, received with immense applause. Kirov had the honor of closing out discussion on Stalin's address, also receiving >> got the last word. receiving immense applause.

[00:05:11]When scrutinizing the congress for clues after the fact, much will be read into this jubilant response to Kirov. Were they clapping for Stalin or for him? His words would prove rather foreboding, as well. "We want to live and live," he said.

[00:05:27]But, at least on the surface, nothing was out of the ordinary. Kirov's speech was laden with praise for Stalin. So, do you blame Kirov, or do you blame the people? And after the unprecedented proposal was made to adopt Stalin's address as party law in toto, sparking an immense standing ovation, Stalin announced he'd be foregoing a concluding speech since there was, quote, complete unity of the party leaders.

[00:05:55]The message was clear, complete unity.

[00:05:59]One notable incident at the Congress involves Praskovya Kudelli, the infamous student of the Stalin school falsification, now an elderly party veteran from the Leningrad delegation.

[00:06:11]Reportedly, after speakers kept calling Stalin a genius, she remarked that she recognized only one genius, Lenin. Oh, Lenin is a ooh.

[00:06:23]For this, two of her peers reported her to the delegation leaders, who confiscated her credentials and ordered her out of the Congress.

[00:06:31]She would write an apology letter soon after.

[00:06:34]The OGPU performed surveillance throughout the event, looking for similar acts of dissidents. Although notably, their reports for >> It's crazy, isn't it? How, you know, you have to have complete because of the volatility that they've experienced in the birth of the party, they're you have to have complete and utter unity and and a measure of of of control, per se. February 7th through 10th have since gone missing.

[00:07:07]When the voting began, 13 ballot boxes were placed in the hall. Based on the number on one's mandate card, the first 100 delegates cast their vote in the first box, the second 100 in the second box, and so on. And then the delegates departed. Earlier, a vote counting commission of 64 people was selected, chaired by Volodymyr Zadonsky, which broke into teams of three to five, each team assigned to a box.

[00:07:35]As the commission counted the votes, presumably Zadonsky reported the results to Lazar Kaganovich, one of Stalin's main allies, and the man who saw to organizational matters at the Congress.

[00:07:48]Perhaps there wasn't complete unity after all.

[00:07:52]The following day, Stalin and his inner circle attended a military parade in Red Square. So, what's the point of this voting if they basically want an autocracy, you know? Is this just a facade? And talked informally.

[00:08:06]What happened next is recorded by Leningrad functionary Mikhail Roslyakov, who claimed to hear the story second-hand from Kirov, and Molotov, who was present but talking 40 years after the fact.

[00:08:20]Stalin apparently proposed Kirov be transferred from his post in Leningrad to Moscow to serve as secretary of the Central Committee, which Kirov objected to. Roslyakov adds that some of those present supported Kirov's decision, causing Stalin to stalk out of the meeting. Eventually a compromise was reached. Kirov would become secretary while retaining his Leningrad positions.

[00:08:45]Though a seemingly minor confrontation, much would be made of this later on as a supposed example of Kirov's growing open defiance to Stalin.

[00:08:55]The day after that, the composition of the Central Committee was announced to the public, but neither the Pravda announcement nor the stenographic report published after would report the actual vote totals. So, we got this from whom then?

[00:09:11]More unusual was that allegedly they were never announced to the Congress, either. And soon So, this information is back-channeled that we're getting? Soon all the documents from the counting commission were ordered sealed in the party archives.

[00:09:26]Almost immediately rumors began to float around the capital that some delegates had talked about replacing Stalin at the Congress, and that Stalin received some no votes. The Menshevik emigre newspaper Socialist Herald picked up on this about 2 weeks later, allegedly receiving a letter from a correspondent in Moscow.

[00:09:47]And I'm I'm imagining all these votes are anonymous, right? They have to be, right? Saying that there was great dismay over Stalin not coming in first, but third, with Third? Kalinin receiving the most votes. A government report similarly records that gossip was spreading, though none of these early reports contain Big Brother. any concrete numbers. Possibly adding to these rumors is that when the Moscow trials occur, confessions will refer to a planned coup at the Congress.

[00:10:17]Then another article appeared in Socialist Herald. This one allegedly written by an anonymous old Bolshevik, an uppermost Soviet leader. It puts forth the claim that for some time there was a split in the Politburo between hardliners and moderates, with Kirov leading the latter. Namely, the article claims that Stalin wanted to execute Ryutin, but Kirov argued against it.

[00:10:43]Decades later, it would be admitted the article was actually written by Menshevik emigre historian Boris Nicolaevsky, who you might remember from his 2-second cameo in the Stalin trial video. Ah, we'll have to watch it. As the guy who was sent to Georgia.

[00:11:00]Thus, the letter of an old Bolshevik was basically a hoax. Albeit, Nicolaevsky claimed it was based on conversations he had with actual Bolshevik leaders.

[00:11:11]Nonetheless, the idea of there being these two competing factions begins to catch on, fueling the idea of a confrontation at the Congress.

[00:11:21]But the issue really comes to the fore following Khrushchev's secret speech in 1956.

[00:11:27]Although Khrushchev doesn't directly accuse Stalin of fabricating the Congress results here.

[00:11:33]>> Because he's dead at 1956, right? He brings special attention to the fact that the purges devastated the Congress of Victors and to the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Kirov.

[00:11:46]Over the next decade, the party will create five separate commissions to examine this.

[00:11:53]Interesting. Very interesting. So, they're investigating their old selves. producing work of varying quality and utility to the politics of the time. But most important for our purposes is the third commission and the work of its main investigator, Olga Shatunovskaya.

[00:12:14]Born in Baku in 1901 and a party member since around age 15, Shatunovskaya had worked in the short-lived Baku Commune and the Red Army during the Revolution.

[00:12:25]Geez. becoming closely acquainted with martyred revolutionary leader Stepan Shaumyan, his son Lev, and Anastas Mikoyan.

[00:12:35]Shatunovskaya would prove a zealous denouncer of Trotskyism and other deviations Down with the Trotsky.

[00:12:43]in the '20s and '30s. Yet, thanks in part to Lavrentiy Beria and his allies, in 1937, she was arrested as a supposed Trotskyist herself. After severe torture to extract a confession, she Yeah, which so stupid. Torture is the stupidest thing ever.

[00:13:02]Not just like for a human rights side of of things, but in terms of actually getting the right answers out because people are just going to tell you what what you want to hear. was sent to a camp in the Far East where she would spend the next decade.

[00:13:15]After several letters to Mikoyan, now a top Soviet leader, he eventually was able to secure her release in 1946, upon which she learned her husband had assumed her for dead and remarried. But, 2 years later, a decree was issued calling for her re-arrest. She would be apprehended in Central Asia in 1949 and exiled to Eniseisk. She Man. began appeal to Mikoyan and to Lev Shaumyan, but this time her appeal was refused.

[00:13:48]Destitute and in poor health, it seems she would be left for dead in Siberia.

[00:13:55]But then, Stalin died and her fortunes began to rapidly change. In 19 >> I I how many I I wonder how many how many fortunes actually changed. It's so interesting >> [clears throat] >> how when these big leaders die, whether it be in Russia, whether it be in China, where wherever, that people start to talk.

[00:14:16]It shows you how scared they really were and how powerful these people really were. And you see this as well as like in like in like old ancient Rome, where there was like these very powerful corrupt emperors.

[00:14:30]Once they die, conversations can flow. 1954, the other leaders turned against Beria. The very men who got Shatunovskaya arrested were now arrested themselves. She was released and rehabilitated and soon recruited by the reformers in the government into a prominent position in the Party Control Commission. The secret speech itself would emerge in part on data from Shaumyan and Shatunovskaya at Mikoyan's suggestion.

[00:14:59]Within a few years, the reformers will have a falling out with their more conservative peers, too, like Molotov and Kaganovich. And Shatunovskaya would remain a passionate party activist and investigator on the side of the reformers, connected to a circle of Baku Bolsheviks, all thoroughly resentful of Beria, Stalin, and the purges, playing a crucial role in freeing and rehabilitating many others as well.

[00:15:25]She's got to have a memoir, right? Cuz this is a crazy life. But she would also become the most ardent crusader for the Congress vote story.

[00:15:40]In connection with your order to study the case of the murder of Kirov, it became necessary to familiarize myself with the minutes of the counting commission of the 17th party congress stored in the email archives. I ask for your consent.

[00:15:58]The boxes are unsealed in the party archives. Unsealed. Revealing the original ballots and count sheets. What they find is that from 1,225 voting delegates, there are 1,059 extant ballots. So, either they didn't vote or they weren't there.

[00:16:18]And in the official count, Kalinin does indeed receive the most votes, tied with Ivan Kotov.

[00:16:24]Stalin receives three no votes, followed by Kirov with four.

[00:16:29]Every nominee save four receive 90% of the vote or higher. The four exceptions all being candidate members from the now defeated right opposition.

[00:16:39]Embarrassingly, Tomsky received only 76% approval.

[00:16:44]However, several irregularities are also observed in the files. The archivist discover there's no record of the issuing of the ballots or an expenditure report for their creation, which would have indicated how many pages were printed out. For example, the archives contain the report stating that 1,500 mandate forms were printed out. Yet when it comes to the counting commission file, the box contains only the following: the 1,059 ballots, a note from Zadonsky saying 20 unused ballots were returned and 55 extra ballots which the commissioners appear to have used as scrap paper. Mhm. Meaning only 1,134 ballots are actually accounted for.

[00:17:30]Also suspect is the purported 166 abstentions or nearly 14%.

[00:17:37]At the previous four con- I mean how does that trend with other, you know, Congress votes?

[00:17:45]In terms of like that percentile of absentees? verses, this rate was 3, 4, 5, and 10% respectively.

[00:17:53]Sorry, he might have just literally said it. He just said it right there. Wow, 3, 4, 5, 10. So, it it's trending that direction, however.

[00:18:05]So, well, the one just after will be 3%.

[00:18:10]Interesting.

[00:18:11]>> [clears throat] >> In 1939, you're in World War II. So, that or you're you're basically in a much more or much different time than 1934.

[00:18:24]I don't know if this tells the story like you would think, though, because it actually is if you do like a trend trend line on this graph, it's actually trending. You can literally it actually grew from 7 to 30, it grew What is that? 100%?

[00:18:43]Right?

[00:18:45]But it did not grow 100%. Again, it didn't even grow at the same volume of percentile. 30 to 34. So, I don't know if this tells me anything, really.

[00:18:56]Although a government report alludes to there being a flu epidemic at the Congress. Okay, there you go. And funny enough, Kirov himself was reported to have fallen sick by the end. So, one possible explanation is that a lot of people just stayed home sick that day.

[00:19:13]Could be. the results to other Congress files, we also see it wasn't unheard of for people to get more votes than Stalin. For example, in 1927, Stalin received 14 no votes, while Bukharin For a sister's like four or five years in?

[00:19:28]Bukharin received four. And at the 1930 Congress, Stalin received nine no votes, the same as Kirov. Though, of course, that was when Stalin's grip on power was more contested as well. Ah.

[00:19:41]>> Something to keep in mind as we look at later testimony is that people weren't shocked that Stalin could get no votes.

[00:19:48]They were shocked he got no votes here.

[00:19:50]As unlike those previous Congresses, the Congress of Victors made a big deal about full unanimity behind Stalin.

[00:19:59]As part of the investigation, 23 Congress goers are summoned to give testimony about the vote. Much of this testimony is inconclusive or Yeah, how many of these people are still alive, right? Maybe a bunch. I don't know. or contradictory, consisting of second or third-hand hearsay. But in brief, five witnesses state that they heard of a plan to replace Stalin or of no votes being cast, anywhere from two to six.

[00:20:26]But 18 witnesses either make no mention of such rumors or explicitly reject ever hearing any. Later on, three more would join this category as well.

[00:20:37]But then there was the Counting Commission. Three out of nine surviving members of the commission were interviewed, all rather elderly at this point. One, Simon Vikson, claimed that Stalin had received more no votes than anyone else, although he couldn't exactly remember how many that was or even how many no votes were in his box.

[00:20:59]Five years later, he would contradict this testimony, now claiming he did remember there were 27 no votes in his box for Um, I mean, we've talked about, you know, later on testimony prior to to to things happening.

[00:21:14]You just can't trust it, right? It's just so long ago. There's too many implications. There's You can't trust it. Sure.

[00:21:23]The second member, Napoleon Indzhoyian, recalled that they were shocked to discover votes against Stalin and anti-Stalin writings on some ballots. He couldn't remember exactly how many no votes there were, but he stated, quote, "No more than three."

[00:21:40]Later on, when writing the final report, the investigators appear to have purposely misrepresented Indzhoyian's testimony, instead presenting him as saying there were no more than three no votes in only his box. And because >> That's what I was thinking, you know, when since this is more or less divided up between the the committee, when they really only have sight on their box, and everything else is rumor.

[00:22:08]there was zero no votes known to have been in that box, that would confirm votes were destroyed.

[00:22:14]But the most detailed account, and the one the investigation really hung its hat on, was from the third commission member, Vasily Verkhavyk, an old Bolshevik and decorated veteran, interviewed on November 23rd.

[00:22:28]He recalled there was a great deal of no votes against Stalin and anti-Stalin notes written on some of them as well.

[00:22:34]But that most of the no votes were destroyed. As for the number, he said, "The greatest number of votes against were Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich. Each had more than 100 votes against That's damning. 100 votes?

[00:22:53]There's a wolf in the hen house at that point. Right? There's there's a a collusion. against. I don't remember exactly now. It seems to me Stalin had 123 or >> Yeah, I don't know, man. This seems outrageous. 125 against. Kaganovich, 126 or 125.

[00:23:15]>> [clears throat] >> Molotov, 121.

[00:23:18]Virkavich would also testify that Stanislav Kosior had told him that some of the delegates had approached Kirov about replacing Stalin, but that Kirov had rebuked them. Gradually, the idea would develop that there were several figures involved in talking to Kirov, Kosior being one. But the name the investigation really focused in on was Boris Shebaldayev.

[00:23:44]Three party functionaries, one of which, a party veteran from Baku, by the way, all suddenly remembered that they had heard from the late Alexei Sevastyanov, who had heard from Kirov, that Boris Shebaldayev had proposed a plan to Kirov at the Congress, but that Kirov refused and told this to Stalin, who replied, "Thank you. You have saved the party."

[00:24:08]This story was also propagated by several Soviet leaders in their memoirs.

[00:24:13]In the writings of Khrushchev himself, censored until 1989, it's claimed that Shebaldayev approached Kirov and that Kirov immediately reported this to Stalin, who replied, "Thanks. I won't forget you for this." Mikoyan, in a passage censored >> that guy get whacked? until 1987, wrote that he personally heard from Enjoysian, one of the counters who testified earlier, that there were 25 no votes in his box alone. That Shatunovskaya saw 200 Jeez. 87 of them during This just seems radically outrageous, though. her investigation and that Shebaldayev talked to Kirov.

[00:24:54]And late in life, Molotov, too, would make mention of this, saying he heard that maybe eight to 10 delegates had discussed, including Shebaldayev.

[00:25:03]But in any case, on January 28th, 1961, Shatunovskaya delivered her final report. Relevant to us is it will canonize the idea that Kirov was a great authority and favorite who was taken down by Stalin, Kaganovich, and Molotov.

[00:25:21]That it was specifically these three people who received heavy no votes at the Congress and had thus rigged the results. Conveniently, it also [clears throat] just so happened >> But it doesn't surprise me that this sort of thing, like they're literally they're trying to function as an autocracy, it seems.

[00:25:39]Uh by this point, at least the posturing.

[00:25:43]That this could not be a, you know, this seems like it very much could be a corrupt out- outcome.

[00:25:50]Um but I mean it's kind of sus that they didn't release the the votes, right? I think that's where the the smoke is. spins. These were the three people the reformers were trying to discredit at the time.

[00:26:05]However, within the year, Shatunovskaya's report begins to receive harsh criticism, especially in regards to the Shebaldayev story.

[00:26:14]It's at this point that a fourth witness is produced, though few of his details line up. When called back in to clarify four years later, he'll regurgitate almost the entirety of the Shatunovskaya report, implying he changed his testimony after Anyone that changes their testimony, you got to throw that out immediately cuz you can't trust it.

[00:26:33]the reading it. I trust it.

[00:26:35]>> But before that can happen, in 1962, Shatunovskaya herself is fired.

[00:26:41]She would later say it was because the investigation made a lot of enemies among the old guard, though she appears to have alienated even her allies. "The people around you are non-Leninists, she would say to them, fearing that her enemies would now destroy the evidence she had gathered.

[00:26:59]On May 22nd, she writes a letter to Khrushchev summarizing all the facts thus far so that they couldn't be changed after the fact. Namely, she highlights the Verkavich testimony, the Sevastyanov witnesses, and now also claims that Sevastyanov personally wrote a note of the story on his deathbed, which his wife recently discovered and turned in. Though there was no mention of the existence of this note until now.

[00:27:29]There's so many There's so many question marks here. Like, do you Who do you believe? And you don't really have empirical evidence on a lot of these things.

[00:27:37]Meanwhile, outside the Kremlin, it begins to be published in Soviet books and articles that there was a sizable number of people at the Congress who pushed to remove Stalin from office.

[00:27:49]Most notably, this is said in the official 30th anniversary article in Pravda. And who wrote this article? None other than Lev Shaumyan.

[00:27:59]So, it seems some bias was attributed here. Eventually, Khrushchev himself is deposed and the de-Stalinization campaign stalls. Plus, the last of the commissions would conclude the hostility between Stalin and Kirov was only hearsay.

[00:28:16]Nonetheless, the idea appears to have been kept alive in private conversations and unpublished manuscripts of some of the more reform-minded leaders, such as Mikoyan and Shatunovskaya herself.

[00:28:30]Evidently, one of the people in contact with this group was a young researcher and minor party functionary named Roy Medvedev, who began writing a history of Stalinism.

[00:28:42]In 1967, authorities will demand to read a copy of his manuscript, deeming it politically harmful. And two years later, he's expelled from the party. But the manuscript is published abroad, becoming the influential book, Let History Judge. Seemingly relying on insider knowledge of the Shelepin report and the various The origins and consequences of Stalinism. rumors we've thus far discussed, Medvedev would write that there were some 270 It just keeps growing. It's kind of like McCarthy's list of communists in in the party and in government, right? It keeps growing. votes against Stalin. Other dissident Soviet writers would follow suit. Wait, wait, did I misread that?

[00:29:31]Yeah.

[00:29:31]>> votes against Stalin. Yeah, I didn't Other dissident Soviet writers would follow suit, making claims of 292 no votes. It just keeps growing.

[00:29:39]>> And in the absence of archival documentation, many Western scholars would make use of these accounts. And thus, the legend of the Stalin no votes soon went global.

[00:29:55]With the beginning of perestroika, there's renewed interest in the mystery, and a new commission is opened. Getting wind of this, Shelepin, now in her late 80s, writes to the commission, passionately defending the Congress theory, among other claims.

[00:30:11]The matter soon comes up in a meeting of the commission.

[00:30:17]Did you happen to see what Shelepin wrote?

[00:30:20]I talked to her. Of course, she doesn't have any materials.

[00:30:26]She simply doesn't have them. She shares personal memories. Sometimes you can get a hint from someone. She says that they talked to her. They conveyed that Stalin was involved in the printing house being exposed. According to the documents, Shelepin spoke about this to a completely different person who emigrated to France. No, no, I'm not talking about that. About Kirov's murder. Hmm. Solovyov and I didn't find the document about Kirov's murder that she signed and which would have asserted Stalin's involvement in Kirov's murder.

[00:30:57]She was put under a little pressure. Uh she began to cite figures for the number of murders committed. Uh 17 million or 15. But this figure never >> Murders?

[00:31:09]appeared anywhere. She cited the fact that a document was allegedly prepared, but then it was revised. Uh Klimov was involved in this matter. Klimov was given the assignment. Well, Shatunovskaya says he was forced to redo it and make such a conclusion. Mhm.

[00:31:26]Comrade Klimov was not such a person. He never allowed himself to distort anything or succumb to any pressure. Uh I don't believe this. Klimov is a well-known and most honest person. Mhm.

[00:31:38]Good. Um we still have some work to do.

[00:31:42]But Shatunovskaya wasn't done. She soon publishes her memoirs and takes her story to the press. There we go.

[00:31:50]Amongst the various tales of intrigue and adventure, including that Mikoyan had been her suitor once upon a time, she now makes a startling argument. What if it was all a lie? The very report that bore her name was a forgery.

[00:32:06]Verkhavich had actually testified from the start that 292 ballots were cast against Stalin, not 125.

[00:32:15]Sebastianov had actually told Unless she's just going with the status quo of today and she rewrote herself. told her the story personally back in 1956, but died mysteriously the very >> does have a vendetta probably against Stalin given, you know, she was pretty much sent off to Siberia.

[00:32:34]So, we We to keep keep that in the back of our heads and turn no matter how, you know, how smoking gun looks, there is bias inherently. Next day, leaving only the note amongst his possessions. And Kirov's sister-in-law had saw the whole thing, too, and testified to this. But, it was all gone now.

[00:32:55]In my letter, I expressed concern about the safety of the investigation materials. It should be noted that the entire investigation of the materials was conducted by me in an atmosphere of furious persecution by the Stalinists and intensive surveillance of my every step. After the materials were submitted to the archive and I was forced to leave the KPK, the Stalinists got the opportunity to commit forgery. This was done by [music] the deputy chairman Serdyuk and the employee Klimov. They destroyed some of the main documents, forged others. On June 5th of this year, Katkov from the KPK came to me, accompanied by two prosecutors, for the purpose of consulting with me. During the conversation, [music] it was confirmed that the historical forgery had been committed on the orders of the Stalinists. It's impossible to list all the facts and cases of forgery and disappearance of decisive documents.

[00:33:58]Unfortunately, Katkov and his assistants found themselves in the captivity of materials falsified at the time. After 6 months of work, they approached me for the first time with a ready-made conclusion. [music] It all made for a compelling story, especially for a Soviet public disillusioned with their government.

[00:34:23]Yeah, disillusion is the right word to use here. But, there's no evidence to confirm any of this. Nor were all these claims in Shatunovskaya's 1962 letter, which, remember, was specifically written to prevent the party from changing the details after the fact. The commission would order a full investigation, but ultimately concluded the story was non-credible. They write back to her.

[00:34:48]With regard to the falsification of the results, the version that the missing quantity of ballots was destroyed because Stalin's name was crossed out on them deserves consideration, but is not confirmed by any documents. And around this time, the counting commission files themselves were declassified to demonstrate this. The prosecutor's office would close the case the following year, concluding The memoirs of Khrushchev and the research of Medvedev on the aforementioned issues are biased and are based Well, I said but this report might be biased as well. I mean, everyone has bias, but this is let's get this straight. Still in the materials of the former employee Shatunovskaya, the first to put forward the version of the involvement of Stalin.

[00:35:34]There are two letters from Shatunovskaya to Mikoyan and Khrushchev. The content of these letters indicates that Shatunovskaya tendentiously selected individual testimonies confirming the version she put forward, which was used in the published memoirs of Khrushchev.

[00:35:51]An analysis of Let History Judge shows that Medvedev used materials provided to him by Shatunovskaya. A comparison of the events described with the arguments of Shatunovskaya shows a biased selection of materials specifically collected to confirm that version.

[00:36:09]And the final word on the matter was said in a report to the Central Committee, that same body that Stalin once allegedly took his revenge on.

[00:36:18]Shatunovskaya's assertion about a secret meeting held during the 17th Congress is not supported by the case materials. Her statement about the falsification of the results is not true. She Chadanov's report about the substitution and disappearance of a number of important documents was not confirmed. Last year, Chadanov died.

[00:36:43]So, where exactly does this leave us?

[00:36:46]Based on the available evidence, I would say we can't completely confirm or deny the claim as it's possible that the vote result was changed, But it's all It seems sus that they did not release it, right? So, very possible it wasn't. The first option is that nothing suspicious happened at all. The higher number of abstentions is simply because a lot of people were absent due to the flu and >> Oh, I think we're past that already.

[00:37:11]Yeah, we've already accepted that. other factors. Stalin did legitimately get three no votes, no more, no less. The missing ballots are just because some people didn't turn theirs in and there wasn't too much concern about recording all this.

[00:37:26]A second possibility is that there was slightly more opposition than this.

[00:37:30]Perhaps the abstentions were boosted by a number of people abstaining in protest or they cast no votes and votes with anti-Stalin slogans, which were filtered off the top. Stalin got perhaps five to 10 no votes, but this was massaged a little in the interest of ensuring the desired message of unity. This is also appealing given the various recollections usually hover around single-digit no votes and often attested to there being some anti-Stalin messages on the ballots, none of which are preserved in the archives.

[00:38:03]In this scenario, it's also not necessarily a top-down conspiracy. It could be that Zadonsky or some of the counters simply wanted to deliver a good result and so threw out a handful of votes. Adding to the ambiguity is that we're missing the paperwork on the conduct of the vote. We ultimately don't know for sure how many people were present in the hall or how many ballots total were handed out.

[00:38:28]The third possibility is that Stalin or perhaps Kaganovich on behalf of Stalin ordered the result be changed. Though even at the most extreme, this probably wasn't more than say 100 no votes as that's about how many ballots are missing in the archive files and that would make for a fairly average rate of abstention.

[00:38:48]This doesn't follow the trend line though, but yeah.

[00:38:52]It could be an anomaly. It's theoretically possible the counters not only destroyed ballots, but created new ones on the fly or had extra saved up new ones on the fly or had extra saved up.

[00:39:05]But that's just speculation. Not even the witnesses claimed as much. So unless we assume a much more elaborate conspiracy or Shatunovskaya's assertion that the evidence was tampered with in the late 60s, we can at least dismiss the claims It just seems outrageous.

[00:39:21]>> claims of 2 to 300 no votes as unfounded.

[00:39:25]Something to consider here is that such a theory would be at odds with typical party political culture as well. For one, many versions of the theory talk about wanting to replace Stalin, something which the Congress didn't technically have the authority to do.

[00:39:40]Perhaps as a result of people getting their wires crossed. But two, the vote was largely ceremonial with every single That's what it feels like. person easily passing. Any actual politicking occurred before the vote in the creation of the list itself or in the selection of the voters, >> [music] >> which is why even during the depths of the leadership struggle, Stalin never received less than 90% of the vote. The theory assumes that after the worst period of opposition, there was a huge mutiny in which people stuck their necks out to symbolically vote against Stalin despite being under no illusion that it would actually change the results.

[00:40:19]But our question isn't just if votes were changed, it's if it was done because of Kirov. And for this, there doesn't appear to be any evidence from the time that Stalin's vote was raised to catch up to him specifically. As a start, even if Stalin received additional no votes, many of those Stalin no votes could also just as well be Kirov no votes.

[00:40:42]Yeah, I can think about that. lowering both their totals. It's believable that a handful of people at the Congress were discontent with Stalin and talked amongst themselves about this. Less plausible, however, is that they were an organized faction that rallied behind Kirov. The evidence suggests that Kirov at the time wasn't perceived as much more than a Stalin sycophant. It was only after Kirov was assassinated that he retroactively became unusually important. Usually happens that way. The line of thinking being, if Stalin killed Kirov, it must have been that Kirov was a key oppositionist worth killing. And after being built up as this virtuous martyr for the cause by Stalin, it wasn't a giant leap to make him a virtuous martyr killed by Stalin. In this, people's recollections were seemingly affected by later rumors and Khrushchev era rhetoric as well, which morphed the story from a handful of people being discontent into there being an actual organized conspiracy. Yeah, and it's far more romantic to think that way, too. It's more interesting and more often than not, it's not interesting. It's pretty boring.

[00:41:53]Ironically, creating a very Stalin-style narrative with scant [clears throat] evidence of the inner workings of the leadership and tales of Kirov seemingly disagreeing with Stalin, this Kirov as oppositionist narrative seems sustainable. However, archival documentation available to to now doesn't bear this out. They don't show this clear-cut division, let alone a pattern of Kirov being the leading dissenter. No evidence has been found of Stalin seeking the death penalty for routine and Kirov fighting against it, for example. And negotiations over reassignments evidently weren't uncommon, either, making Kirov's supposed argument with Stalin incredibly mundane in retrospect. Thus, even if the vote was minorly changed, this was probably to make for a generally more acceptable results, rather than having anything to do with Kirov.

[00:42:44]And for many Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Soviet leaders, the idea of there being this separate faction and big rebellion at the Congress was no doubt appealing. It was a way of distancing themselves from whatever came after. To say, "That was Stalin. We had tried to stop him, after all." The sobering truth being, though, they had all been complicit. There had been complete unity.

[00:43:07]That's interesting. This is, you know, I don't know a lot about a lot of the players of early Soviet Russia, and this is just kind of like putting the pieces together, especially with Kirov. And like this quote-unquote opposition force. It seems like the opposition as time grew, the opposition grew.

[00:43:25]And is that inherent to like what Stalin does, or is that more inherent to like the distancing of themselves from the party to put themselves in a better light? Everyone has a personal legacy.

[00:43:36]So, but then there's also the inherent bias of the main author throughout this entire freaking thing right here. Forget her name. I'm sorry. Uh Shadanovska. I I hope I didn't just brutally butcher that, but because of, you know, her exile and her probably disdain to the to the to to the entire faction.

[00:44:04]Seems like there was some implicit bias throughout her her findings to you know, but you know why was she sent out?

[00:44:16]Like truly, why was she sent out?

[00:44:19]So many questions.

[00:44:21]This is a good video, you know, really got more insight on like how the inner workings of the the Congress works. That was a really interesting thing as well as kind of like a lot of opinions after the fact.

[00:44:34]Appreciate you guys as always. Leave me some context below. I'll see you guys next time. Peace out. And bye-bye.