NY Times Ponders Lenin's Death

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Then, in his last hours and days of his life, Lenin experienced severe seizures (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/symptoms/seizures/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier).


An autopsy revealed a near total obstruction of the arteries leading to the brain, some of which were narrowed to tiny slits. But Lenin did not have some of the traditional risk factors for strokes.


He did not have untreated high blood pressure (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/hypertension/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier) — had that been his problem, the left side of his heart would have been enlarged. He did not smoke and would not tolerate smoking in his presence. He drank only occasionally and exercised regularly. He did not have symptoms of a brain infection, nor did he have a brain tumor (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/brain-tumor-adults/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier).


So what brought on the stroke that killed Lenin?


The clues lie in Lenin’s family history, Dr. Vinters said. The three siblings who survived beyond their 20s had evidence of cardiovascular disease, and Lenin’s father died of a disease that was described as being very much like Lenin’s. Dr. Vinters said Lenin might have inherited a tendency to develop extremely high cholesterol (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/nutrition/cholesterol/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier), causing the severe blockage of his blood vessels that led to his stroke.
Compounding that was the stress Lenin experienced, which can precipitate a stroke in someone whose blood vessels are already blocked.


But Lenin’s seizures in the hours and days before he died are a puzzle and perhaps historically significant. Severe seizures, Dr. Vinters said in an interview before the conference, are “quite unusual in a stroke patient.”


But, he added, “almost any poison can cause seizures.”
Dr. Lurie concurred on Friday, telling the conference that poison was in his opinion the most likely immediate cause of Lenin’s death. The most likely perpetrator? Stalin, who saw Lenin as his main obstacle to taking over the Soviet Union and wanted to get rid of him.
Communist Russia in the early 1920s, Dr. Lurie told the conference, was a place of “Mafia-like intrigue.”


In 1921 Lenin started complaining that he was ill. From then until his death in 1924, Lenin “began to feel worse and worse,” Dr. Lurie said.
“He complained that he couldn’t sleep and that he had terrible headaches. He could not write, he did not want to work,” Dr. Lurie said. He wrote to Alexei Maximovich Gorky, “I am so tired, I do not want to do anything at all.”


But he nonetheless was planning a political attack on Stalin, Dr. Lurie said. And Stalin, well aware of Lenin’s intentions, sent a top-secret note to the Politburo in 1923 claiming that Lenin himself asked to be put out of his misery.


The note said: “On Saturday, March 17th in the strictest secrecy Comrade Krupskaya told me of ‘Vladimir Ilyich’s request to Stalin,’ namely that I, Stalin, should take the responsibility for finding and administering to Lenin a dose of potassium cyanide. I felt it impossible to refuse him, and declared: ‘I would like Vladimir Ilyich to be reassured and to believe that when it is necessary I will fulfill his demand without hesitation.’”


Stalin added that he just could not do it: “I do not have the strength to carry out Ilyich’s request and I have to decline this mission, however humane and necessary it might be, and I therefore report this to the members of the Politburo.”


Dr. Lurie said Stalin might have poisoned Lenin despite this assurance, as Stalin was “absolutely ruthless.”


Dr. Vinters believes that sky-high cholesterol leading to a stroke was the main cause of Lenin’s death. But he said there is one other puzzling aspect of the story. Although toxicology studies were done on others in Russia, there was an order that no toxicology be done on Lenin’s tissues.


So the mystery remains.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/health/research/lenins-death-remains-a-mystery-for-doctors.html

Interesting article, though I wonder how much of it is embellished propoganda, and would like a more leftist take on the death of Mr Lenin. I have never heard of the bit concerning Stalin claiming Lenin asked him (Stalin) to put him out of his misery, and wonder why this is never brought up if it is, indeed, true.

Either way, an interesting read that seems to leave more questions than answers.

[Omsk]

Hello.

There are two topic about this in the main forums.And i wrote in them,actually,repeated something relevant which i wrote some time ago. I will do the same here too:

Trotsky was one of the first people to claim that Stalin poisoned Lenin.

I had a discussion about this with daft-punk,our favorite Trotskyite,and in the end,he basically gave up,because there is no proof at all which could even hint that Stalin had any kind of a role in Lenin's death.

To quote an old post i wrote in those 'productive' days:

And,yet again "daft punk" goes into his usual lines of anti-historical materialism and his negation of some very serious and proven facts that surround the death of the great socialist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin,as we all know,his health was bad,and it was mainly the result of the many assassination atempts and his bad health,which was understandable,because of the years of intelectual labour Vladimir Lenin passed trough,however,the usual Trotskyists lie that somehow,Stalin,the second man after Lenin,was ploting to assassinate the man who spoke about him like a comrade,and criticized him when the situation called,and the man who was one of the first serious marxist thinkers he met while he advanced from poor and backward Georgia to the center of the future Soviet Union,Russia,and to Petrograd.Further more,i am not obliged to write about their own relationship,which was,at best,one of the more solid in the entire Bolshevik state leadership,which is showed by Lenins own words,and by the acts of Joseph Stalin,after the death of the great revolutionary Lenin - : Soon after Lenin died a year later, Stalin had the Marx-Engels Institute re-named the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute. He insured, by means of a special Central Committee decision, that all materials, documents, and letters, including those of a personal nature, would be deposited in this new center for the "research of Lenin's heritage." A Lenin archive of 4500 documents was created, as Tikhomirnov informed Stalin in early 1933. It would soon grow to 26,000. On Stalin's orders all Lenin material that had belonged to Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and other leading figures was transferred to it, and expeditions by Ganetsky, Adoratsky, and Tikhomirnov scoured Vienna, Warsaw, Cracow, Zurich, Brussels, and Paris in search of more Leniniana. Volkogonov, Dmitrii. Lenin: A New Biography. New York: Free Press, 1994, p. 274. Not to mention that Stalin was not ignoring Lenin in no possible way,in fact,it is know that he proposed his resignation,however...(in his own words) : Right from the first session of the Central Committee, after the 13th Congress, I asked to be released from the obligations of the General Secretaryship. The Congress itself examined the question. Each delegation examined the question, and every delegation, including Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev, voted unanimously in favor of Stalin remaining at his post. What could I do then? Abandon my post? Such a thing is not in my character.... At the end of one year I again asked to be set free and I was again forced to remain at my post. What could I do then?
Stalin, Joseph. Stalin's Kampf. New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, c1940, p. 244

Now i would like to mention a few words aimed at your notion that Trotsky never lied about Stalin,while the supporters of Trotsky of course,in most cases,completely accept such ideas,there have been voices against such words,and to be honest,to the non-Trotskyists part of the forum,it is pretty obvious that Trotsky did in fact lie about Stalin a lot,as it was his strategy,and one of his main weapons: his literary skill,since he didn't have support from the masses,he could only write books and criticise Stalin for the things he would not dream of.The many of his lies are by now,well known : Nevertheless, in composing the portrait [of Stalin], he [Trotsky] uses abundantly far too often the material of inference, guess, and hearsay. He picks up any piece of gossip or rumor if only it shows a trait of cruelty or suggests treachery in the young Djugachvili. He gives credence to Stalin's schoolmates and later enemies who in reminiscences about their childhood, written in exile thirty or more years after the events, say that the boy Soso "had only a sarcastic sneer for the joys and sorrows of his fellows": that "compassion for people or for animals was foreign to him"; or that from "his youth the carrying out of vengeful plots became for him the goal that dominated all his efforts."... There is no need to go into many examples of this approach. The most striking is, of course, Trotsky's suggestion, mentioned earlier, that Stalin had poisoned Lenin....Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Outcast. London, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1963, p. 452 .Lenin was always close to Stalin,and had much trust in him,which is showed when he placed entire battalions under his command,and thousands of men,he complimented him,both before the revolution,and after.And now to finally adress the question of Stalin poisoning Lenin,an idea which is in its essence,absurd.

Trotsky would later speak of "Stalin's poison." But this is irrelevant. Professor V. Shklovsky, son of the imminent physician M. Shklovsky, found in his father's records the testimony [originally meant to be destroyed] of V. Osipov, one of the senior doctors attending Lenin, and a speech therapist S. Dobrogayev. We read in particular that "the final diagnosis dismisses the stories of the syphilitic character of Lenin's disease, or of arsenic poisoning. It was atherosclerosis, mainly affecting the cerebral blood vessels. The calcium deposit was so thick that during dissection the tweezers made a noise as if they were rapping on stone. Lenin's parents also died of this disease." But the story that Lenin had been poisoned would never die. Radzinsky, Edvard. Stalin. New York: Doubleday, c1996, p. 213

[l'Enfermé]

It's not that unlikely. Take for example, Mikhail Frunze. He was one of the original Bolsheviks who sided with Lenin during the split at the second congress, in 1903, one of the Bolshevik leaders during the 1905 revolution, commander of the Southern Front during the Civil War, led the expulsion of Wrangel's armies from the Crimea and Northern Tarvia, also a military theorist(his military doctorines were created on the application of Marxism to military theory) and Chairman of Revolutionary Military Council after Lenin's death(the supreme military authority in the USSR). Frunze was a pretty powerful figure in those days, especially in the military(some more or less untrustworthy sources paint him as a "potential successor" to Lenin, but that's not really true), and he was an ardent supporter of Zinoviev. When Stalin's alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev began to break down in early 1925, Frunze was an important ally to Zinoviev and Kamenev. A month after the Zinoviev's and Kamenev's struggle against Stalin, Bukharin and Rykov become public(September '25), Frunze was convinced(after much persuasion), by Stalin and Stalin's dog Mikoyan, to undergo a rather simple surgery for his ulcer. Despite the surgery being performed by some of the USSR's best surgeons(1 removed the bullets from Lenin 2 years after the assassination attempt on him and was the head of the surgical department at the Kremlin hospital, for example (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82%D1%8B%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2,_ %D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%B9_%D0%92% D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1 %87)), Frunze died of chloroform poisoning because he was adminstered a chloroform dosage that exceeded the dosage usually normally applied for narcosis many times. It doesn't help that the 4 surgeons that operated on him all died in 1934. There's also that whole Kirov thing.

Though the whole Lenin asking Stalin to perform a mercy-killing on him is just nonsense. Lenin's relationship began to deteriorate after Stalin showed his true colors during the Georgian affair, and Lenin completely broke off contact with Stalin and was working out a way with Trotsky to remove Stalin from power, shortly before his third stroke.

Stalin claims that Krupskaya told him of Lenin's "request" on the 17th of March, even though Lenin officially broke off relations with Stalin on the 5th of March (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05.htm), and his official reason for this was that Stalin harassed and threatened Krupskaya(because she wrote down a letter Lenin dictated to Trotsky in December, on the foreign trade monopoly). Krupsakya was definitely not on speaking terms with Stalin in march 1923. This is just another lie on the long list of Stalinist falsifications.

[Omsk]

Any evidence? No. That is all.

As for common misconceptions and a lack of knowledge regarding the matters at hand,here is an answer for this: Though the whole Lenin asking Stalin to perform a mercy-killing on him is just nonsense.

Absolutely not.

There is a number of book segment which point out that Lenin had high trust in Stalin,and that even in the dawning days of his life,he regarded Stalin as a comrade,and a person in which he could find hope,and stability.

On March 17, 1923, the day Semashko and the doctors signed the bulletin, ratified by the Central Committee and describing Lenin's condition as 'good', Stalin, as General Secretary, wrote a note to the Politburo in which he reported that Lenin was urgently requesting a lethal dose of potassium cyanide. Krupskaya was 'stubbornly insisting that Lenin's request should not be refused'. She had even 'tried to give it to him herself, but had lost her nerve', and that was why she had asked for Stalin's help. Stalin concluded by saying that although he believed giving Lenin cyanide would be 'a humane mission', he himself would be unable to carry it out.
Volkogonov, Dmitrii. Autopsy for an Empire. New York: Free Press, c1998, p. 66

Maria wrote in her memoir of Lenin's last six months that:
"In the winner of 1920-21 or 21-22 Ilich was very, very bad. Headaches and an inability to work troubled him deeply. I don't remember exactly when, but at some time during that period, Ilich told Stalin that he would very likely end up being paralyzed, and he got Stalin's word that in that event he would help him get hold of some potassium cyanide. Stalin promised...."

She returns to this topic elsewhere:
"Lenin made the same request to Stalin in May 1922, after his first stroke. Lenin had decided that he was finished and asked for Stalin to come to him for the shortest possible time. He was so insistent that it was decided he should be indulged. Stalin stayed for literally no more than five minutes. And when he came out, he told me and Bukharin that Lenin had asked him to get some poison, as the time to fulfil his earlier promise had arrived. Stalin had promised, they had embraced, and Stalin had left. But then, after discussing it together, we decided we must give Lenin courage, so Stalin went back to Lenin again and told him that, having talked to the doctors, he was convinced that all was not yet lost.... Lenin was visibly cheered and agreed.
Maria's memoirs, although they are not always accurate, are nevertheless clear that the thought of suicide was in Lenin's mind from the moment the illness struck him.
The archives, however, hold a more reliable document--a "strictly secret" letter from Stalin to the Politburo, dated 21 March 1923:
"On Saturday 17 March in the strictest secrecy Comrade Krupskaya told me of 'Vladimir Ilyich's request to Stalin,' namely that I, Stalin, should take the responsibility for finding and administering to Lenin a dose of potassium cyanide. In our conversation Krupskaya said, among other things, that 'Vladimir Ilyich is suffering unbelievably,' that 'to go on living is unthinkable,' and she stubbornly insisted that I 'not refuse Ilyich's request,' in view of Krupskaya's insistence and also because Ilyich was demanding my agreement (Lenin twice called Krupskaya to go to him during my conversation with her in his study, where we were talking, and emotionally asked for 'Stalin's agreement,' causing us to break off our conversation twice), I felt it impossible to refuse him, and declared: 'I would like Vladimir Ilyich to be reassured and to believe that when it is necessary I will fulfil his demand without hesitation.' Ilyich was indeed reassured.
I must, however, state that I do not have the strength to carry out Ilyich's request and I have to decline this mission, however humane and necessary it might be, and I therefore report this to the members of the Politburo.

The reactions of the Politburo were summed up in an informal resolution: "I have read it. I propose that Stalin's 'indecisiveness is correct. There should be an exchange of opinion strictly among Politburo members. Without (administrative) secretaries. Signed Tomsky, Zinoviev, Molotov, Bukharin, Trotsky, Kamenev.
Volkogonov, Dmitrii. Lenin: A New Biography. New York: Free Press, 1994, p. 425-426

[l'Enfermé]

Any evidence? No. That is all.
I'm sorry but I don't particularly care about one-liners posted by genocide-denying, ethnic cleansing-supporting, Stalin-worshipping, lying charlatans. Glenn Beck makes more sense than you do. You and your fellow charlatans are like govt. agents hired to discredit Marxism and to turn off potential RevLefters from sticking around instead of immediately getting tired of reading the nonsense posted by RevLeft's Stalin cheering squad. Honestly how can someone agree to become a Stalinist unless they are being payed for it?

[Omsk]

That's nothing.

If you don't have actual evidence that Stalin poisoned Lenin i guess this discussion is pointless.

[l'Enfermé]

Any evidence? No. That is all.

As for common misconceptions and a lack of knowledge regarding the matters at hand,here is an answer for this: Though the whole Lenin asking Stalin to perform a mercy-killing on him is just nonsense.

Absolutely not.

There is a number of book segment which point out that Lenin had high trust in Stalin,and that even in the dawning days of his life,he regarded Stalin as a comrade,and a person in which he could find hope,and stability.

On March 17, 1923, the day Semashko and the doctors signed the bulletin, ratified by the Central Committee and describing Lenin's condition as 'good', Stalin, as General Secretary, wrote a note to the Politburo in which he reported that Lenin was urgently requesting a lethal dose of potassium cyanide. Krupskaya was 'stubbornly insisting that Lenin's request should not be refused'. She had even 'tried to give it to him herself, but had lost her nerve', and that was why she had asked for Stalin's help. Stalin concluded by saying that although he believed giving Lenin cyanide would be 'a humane mission', he himself would be unable to carry it out.
Volkogonov, Dmitrii. Autopsy for an Empire. New York: Free Press, c1998, p. 66

Maria wrote in her memoir of Lenin's last six months that:
"In the winner of 1920-21 or 21-22 Ilich was very, very bad. Headaches and an inability to work troubled him deeply. I don't remember exactly when, but at some time during that period, Ilich told Stalin that he would very likely end up being paralyzed, and he got Stalin's word that in that event he would help him get hold of some potassium cyanide. Stalin promised...."

She returns to this topic elsewhere:
"Lenin made the same request to Stalin in May 1922, after his first stroke. Lenin had decided that he was finished and asked for Stalin to come to him for the shortest possible time. He was so insistent that it was decided he should be indulged. Stalin stayed for literally no more than five minutes. And when he came out, he told me and Bukharin that Lenin had asked him to get some poison, as the time to fulfil his earlier promise had arrived. Stalin had promised, they had embraced, and Stalin had left. But then, after discussing it together, we decided we must give Lenin courage, so Stalin went back to Lenin again and told him that, having talked to the doctors, he was convinced that all was not yet lost.... Lenin was visibly cheered and agreed.
Maria's memoirs, although they are not always accurate, are nevertheless clear that the thought of suicide was in Lenin's mind from the moment the illness struck him.
The archives, however, hold a more reliable document--a "strictly secret" letter from Stalin to the Politburo, dated 21 March 1923:
"On Saturday 17 March in the strictest secrecy Comrade Krupskaya told me of 'Vladimir Ilyich's request to Stalin,' namely that I, Stalin, should take the responsibility for finding and administering to Lenin a dose of potassium cyanide. In our conversation Krupskaya said, among other things, that 'Vladimir Ilyich is suffering unbelievably,' that 'to go on living is unthinkable,' and she stubbornly insisted that I 'not refuse Ilyich's request,' in view of Krupskaya's insistence and also because Ilyich was demanding my agreement (Lenin twice called Krupskaya to go to him during my conversation with her in his study, where we were talking, and emotionally asked for 'Stalin's agreement,' causing us to break off our conversation twice), I felt it impossible to refuse him, and declared: 'I would like Vladimir Ilyich to be reassured and to believe that when it is necessary I will fulfil his demand without hesitation.' Ilyich was indeed reassured.
I must, however, state that I do not have the strength to carry out Ilyich's request and I have to decline this mission, however humane and necessary it might be, and I therefore report this to the members of the Politburo.

The reactions of the Politburo were summed up in an informal resolution: "I have read it. I propose that Stalin's 'indecisiveness is correct. There should be an exchange of opinion strictly among Politburo members. Without (administrative) secretaries. Signed Tomsky, Zinoviev, Molotov, Bukharin, Trotsky, Kamenev.
Volkogonov, Dmitrii. Lenin: A New Biography. New York: Free Press, 1994, p. 425-426
Again, nonsense. I am not sure if what is being said in your post is that Krupskaya told Stalin of Lenin's request on Saturday March 17 1923, or Saturday March 17 1922. In 1922, March 17 was a Friday. In 1923, March 17 was a Saturday, so I believe that what is being said is that Krupskaya talked to Stalin about Lenin's request in March 1923, and this is impossible. Lenin broke off contacts with Stalin on the 5th of March, and was trying to remove Stalin from the leadership with Trotsky, and Krupskaya certainly wasn't on speaking terms with Stalin at this time because it was because of her that Lenin and Stalin were no longer speaking. It was only later that Krupskaya finally surrendered to Stalin, not in March 23.

Regarding the quotes you posted, from Volkogonov and "Maria", well, who is "Maria"? Volkogonov was one of Yeltsin's dogs and advisers so forgive me if I don't take anything he wrote seriously.

[l'Enfermé]

That's nothing.

If you don't have actual evidence that Stalin poisoned Lenin i guess this discussion is pointless.
A Stalinist asking for "actual evidence" after the Moscow Show Trial is a very laughable spectacle, Omsk.

[Omsk]

Regarding the quotes you posted, from Volkogonov and "Maria", well, who is "Maria"? Volkogonov was one of Yeltsin's dogs and advisers so forgive me if I don't take anything he wrote seriously.
And if i posted something which a "Stalinist" wrote - i would get the same answer.That is why i won't even bother with the likes of you.Im in doubt about wther i should even spend my time with a violent reactionary like you.

The true question is - what evidence do you have that Stalin poisoned Lenin?


A Stalinist asking for "actual evidence" after the Moscow Show Trial is a very laughable spectacle, Omsk.

All right,no evidence,consider this discussion over.Unless you actually prove that Stalin killed Lenin.

[Koba Junior]

I'm sorry but I don't particularly care about one-liners posted by genocide-denying, ethnic cleansing-supporting, Stalin-worshipping, lying charlatans. Glenn Beck makes more sense than you do. You and your fellow charlatans are like govt. agents hired to discredit Marxism and to turn off potential RevLefters from sticking around instead of immediately getting tired of reading the nonsense posted by RevLeft's Stalin cheering squad. Honestly how can someone agree to become a Stalinist unless they are being payed for it?

I just thought I'd comment. The post to which the above responds noted that claims were produced without any evidence on the part of Comrade Borz. The above, rather than immediately supplying such evidence (as should have been done to begin with), enters into a string of childish name-calling and personal attacks. That speaks volumes about the evidentiary support of the original claims. This is nothing beyond simply shameful.

P.S. - I notice evidence for these claims is still not forthcoming despite several requests for it. Instead, there has only been more puerile nastiness on the part of Comrade Borz.

P.P.S. - I further note that Comrade Omsk has given very thorough evidence to back up his claims, mostly in the form of quotes from original sources. Why he continues to entertain Borz's juvenile trolling, I can never guess.

[l'Enfermé]

I just thought I'd comment. The post to which the above responds noted that claims were produced without any evidence on the part of Comrade Borz. The above, rather than immediately supplying such evidence (as should have been done to begin with), enters into a string of childish name-calling and personal attacks. That speaks volumes about the evidentiary support of the original claims. This is nothing beyond simply shameful.

P.S. - I notice evidence for these claims is still not forthcoming despite several requests for it. Instead, there has only been more puerile nastiness on the part of Comrade Borz.

P.P.S. - I further note that Comrade Omsk has given very thorough evidence to back up his claims, mostly in the form of quotes from original sources. Why he continues to entertain Borz's juvenile trolling, I can never guess.
I didn't make any claims. I only said that Stalin poisoning Lenin is not unlikely, because it's very likely that Stalin assassinated at least 2 political opponents(and thousands of others, but the purges and show trials were public), Frunze and Kirov(though Kirov wasn't exactly a political opponent, but his death was greatly beneficial to Stalin and considering the circumstances, it's very likely that his assassination was a false-flag operation, much like the burning of Reichstag).

I did not bring up the theory that Lenin was assassinated by Stalin, the OP did that. It's not my responsibility to prove it, I even don't necessarily believe in the theory, I only think it's somewhat logical, and if true, not really surprising. Either way, it doesn't particularly matter to me. I don't share the views of some naive "Trotskyists" that think that if Lenin didn't die so early and Trotsky and Lenin were able to remove Stalin from power everything would have been wonderful and Stalin wouldn't have destroyed the international Socialist movement. If Lenin didn't die, the bureaucratic counter-revolution would have still prevailed over Socialism, Stalin would have just simply been removed but the bureaucracy would have found another Stalin to take his place. Stalin was just a person, and not a particularly extraordinary or gifted one, though I guess the bourgeoisie has much to admire him for, after all he's killed(inb4 "with his own hands? how many people has he killed with his own hands, huh?!!?!?!?!11111?!!!?!?!", yeah, yeah, Hitler didn't gas a single Jew or gypsy or work or starve a single Soviet PoW to death, does that mean he's not responsible for the Holocaust?) more Marxists than Hitler, Mussolini and Franco combined. But Franco didn't have such a large pool of Marxists in Spain left for him to kill, to be honest, for Stalin's agents killed nearly all of them before the war ended, and killed a few more who escaped from Spain afterwards.

Now, regarding very "thorough" evidence that Omsk has allegedly posted, that's a false assertion. Omsk posted quotes from books by people like Radvinsky, an investment banker, and Volkogonov, one of Yeltsin's lackeys and advisers, and Stalin himself, so please, forgive me if I disregard completely everything his wonderful sources write.

[Omsk]

because it's very likely that Stalin assassinated at least 2 political opponents(and thousands of others, but the purges and show trials were public), Frunze and Kirov

No it's not,as i have explained in this post i wrote some time ago:

Omsk: I just read a column by Roy Medvedev,(From his book,Let History Judge (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_History_Judge): The Origin and Consequences of Stalinism) and it was about the assassination of Sergei Kirov,and without being too surprised about the text,it did contain some important parts,namely,the rather quick acting of the NKVD ,on the 6th of December,the day Kirov was burried,the Soviet public masses were informed that all of the people accused are going to be executed.In Leningrad,some 39 people were host,while in Moscow,some 29 accused figures were shot.The next day,it was anounced that another 12 people in Minsk,(9 were shot) and 28 were arrested in Kiev,(28 of them,shot.) The NKVD was on high alert those days,as the situation was quite strange,as Kirov was the only man from the party assassinated after 1918.The fear of some party leaders was quite big,and many files were re-oppened.The Kirov murder was certainly the event of the year,if not,the entire period,as it saw a drastic change in Soviet policy toward conspirators.

However,the murder of Sergei Kirov is not so mysterious these days,and it is generally accepted that he was not murdered by 'Stalin and Stalinists' - and that such notions simply dont have a basis in historical facts.The Western obsession with the murder of Sergei Kirov mostly started around the 1980' - when a situation was created by right-wing anti-communists who tried to turn the entire case into a 'conspiracy' - and something they separated from reality and historical facts.

...Beginning in the 1980s other Western and Soviet historians also questioned the Stalin complicity theory , the origins of the story, and Stalin's motive and opportunity, as well as investigating the circumstances surrounding the event. They noted that the sources for the theory derived originally from memoirists, mostly Cold War-era Soviet defectors, whose information was second- and thirdhand and who were in all cases far removed from the event. These writers had generated a huge and sensational literature that largely repeated and echoed itself while providing few verifiable facts, and which sometimes seemed primarily designed to enhance the status and importance of the author. Later historians noted that despite at least two official Soviet investigations and the high-level political advantages of accusing Stalin in the Khrushchev years, even the most anti-Stalin Soviet administrations had never accused Stalin of the crime,...
[I](Getty & Naumov, The Road to Terror. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, c1999, p. 143 )

...In fact, Kirov seems to have been a staunch Stalinist....
The question of Leningrad police complicity also seems murky. Recent evidence discounts the alleged connections between them and the assassin. One implicated NKVD official was not even in the city during the months he was supposed to have groomed the assassin. It is true that many Leningrad police officials and party leaders were executed in the terror after the assassination, but so were hundreds of thousands of others. There is no compelling reason to believe that they were killed "to cover the tracks" of the Kirov assassination, as Khrushchev put it. Moreover, they were left alive and free to talk for three years following the crime. Some historians have found it unlikely that Stalin would have used these agents to arrange the killing and then given them so much opportunity to betray the plot.
Getty & Naumov, The Road to Terror. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, c1999, p. 144

You could also read this from : Molotov

Yagoda (through whom Stalin presumably worked to kill Kirov) was produced in open court and in front of the world press before his execution in 1938. Knowing that he was to be shot in any event, he could have brought Stalin's entire house of cards down with a single remark about the Kirov killing. Again, such a risk would appear to be unacceptable for a complicit Stalin.
The Stalinists seemed unprepared for the assassination and panicked by it.

Khrushchov hinted that Stalin had Kirov killed. There are some who still believe that story. The seeds of suspicion were planted. A commission was set up in 1956. Some 12 persons, from various backgrounds, looked through a welter of documents but found nothing incriminating Stalin. But these results have never been published.... The commission concluded that Stalin was not implicated in Kirov's assassination. Khrushchev refused to have the findings published since they didn't serve his purpose.
Chuev, Feliks. Molotov Remembers. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993, p. 353

The work of a research group much later,also,revealed nothing.


An extensive review of the evidence carried out in 1990 at the behest of Gorbachev's advisor Yakovlev does not implicate Stalin [in the murder of Kirov]. Another explanation for Stalin's assault on party cadres was the rumor that the party faithful at the 17th Party Congress in 1934 had not voted overwhelmingly to elect Stalin to the party's central committee. The documents provided here show this not to be the case,...
Koenker and Bachman, Eds. Revelations from the Russian Archives. Washington: Library of Congress, 1997, p. 4


Now,another questions rises up every time,"Was Kirov some kind of an inovator and a reformist?" - No.In fact,he was more lenient (Although,there is evidence to suggest this is wrong also) than Stalin,but overall,the idea that he was more 'expirienced' than Stalin,more popular,or more profound in theory and action does not hold ground.While it can be said that he was a good orator,and that he knew his way with the masses,that does not count as a supreme qualification for a serious position.He was never good with theory,he may have been a 'man of the people' but his relationship with the masses was not much different than Stalin's.

Another thing that comes to my mind,is that Kirov and Stalin were pretty close,i would not say that they were 'friends' ,but they were not enemies too.This is suggested by a number of different people. :

If Stalin and Kirov were antagonists, it would be difficult to explain Kirov's continued rise. Stalin chose Kirov for the sensitive Leningrad party leadership position and trusted him with delicate "trouble-shooter" missions to supervise critical harvests (like Kirov's journey to Central Asia in 1934). Kirov was elected to the Secretariat and Politburo in 1934, and Stalin wanted him to move to the Central Committee Secretariat in Moscow as soon as possible. Unless one is prepared to believe that Stalin did not control appointments to the Secretariat and Politburo... one must assume that he and Kirov were allies.
Much more probable than a Kirov-versus-Stalin scenario is one in which Stalin, Kirov, and Zhdanov cooperated.
Getty, A. Origins of the Great Purges. Cambridge, N. Y.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, p. 94

The entire question of Kirov's murder is quite unkown,as there was no evidence whatsoever,that Stalin was responsible for the murder of Kirov,and their relationship was explained by many,but also defined completely differently,from one page to the other they were hostile,they were friends,they were comrades,they were direct enemies,they were the best of friends.It is an important and quite complicated discussion subject,and i urge that the users who wish to participate in this discussion write with care,and try to avoid sectarian-feuds and personal attacks,and try to raise the quality level of the discussion.I hope this last line wont be ignored comrades.


And to answer this little bit too:



Stalin was just a person, and not a particularly extraordinary or gifted one


Oh no?And the figures you 'follow' were "gifted" and "great" ? They were nothing compared to J.V. (I am speaking about Bukharin,Trotsky,and the other anti-Soviet standard-bearers.

[Koba Junior]

I didn't make any claims. I only said that Stalin poisoning Lenin is not unlikely, because it's very likely that Stalin assassinated at least 2 political opponents(and thousands of others, but the purges and show trials were public), Frunze and Kirov(though Kirov wasn't exactly a political opponent, but his death was greatly beneficial to Stalin and considering the circumstances, it's very likely that his assassination was a false-flag operation, much like the burning of Reichstag).

Those are, in fact, claims. Whether you say it most certainly happened or that it was merely likely to have happened, you've made a claim. It is, in fact, solely your responsibility to back up the claim that you made with evidentiary support. Really, though, you attempted to provide evidence for the likelihood of Stalin having assassinated Lenin already: you made the claim that Stalin had assassinated two political opponents secretly. (Why this makes sense to you when you note "thousands" of assassinations as having been public eludes me.) You provided no evidence that implicated Stalin in their deaths in any way; you merely noted that they were poisoned by chloroform. Their deaths juxtaposed to their situation with Stalin does not a murder conviction make.


... so please, forgive me if I disregard completely everything his wonderful sources write.

That I cannot forgive, because you have provided no reason for disregarding everything presented to you beyond your particular distaste for the authors.