Joseph Stalin was, if nothing else, an opportunist, and that can be seen clearly in the tactics he used to come to power in the decade following Lenin’s death. A particularly strong example can be seen in 1934′s Kirov Affair, in which he got rid of a political rival, using the fallout to further secure his position at the helm of the Soviet government. Sergei Kirov, an old Bolshevik, worked his way up the ranks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union by his own merit. At the 17th party Congress, elections to the central committee were held, and in an unprecedented showing of support, only three negative votes were cast against him, compared to the hundreds that Stalin received. During dekulakization, Stalin’s campaign to eliminate economically better-off peasants who were prone to  counterrevolutionary activities, Kirov suggested a less harsh approach – a “reconciliation with the people” – in a well-received speech. Though Kirov was a vocal supporter of Stalin, his extreme popularity is rumored to have threatened Stalin the dictator. Stalin was quick to act. In a suspicious turn of events, the NKVD, the Soviet secret police, took over the protection duties of Kirov, gradually withdrawing bodyguards from duty. Leonid Nikolaev, a disillusioned party member who had a long record with the NKVD, was reported to have held a grudge against Kirov. Nikolaev was arrested outside of Kirov’s office in October of 1934 with a loaded handgun, but the NKVD released him without punishment, even allowing him to keep his gun – an absurd abdication of responsibility on their part, that is unless it was part of a secret agenda. On December 1, Nikolaev breezed through security, making his way up to the office, this time managing to shoot Kirov. Almost immediately, Mikhail Kalinin and the communist party organization were able to pass through measures allowing for swift punishment of “terrorist acts against the Soviet government.” Requiring investigations to take place over a course of only ten days and sentences to be carried out immediately after, the decree also suspended a defendant’s rights to counsel during the trial and to appeals following the trial. Stalin now had the power to carry out purges of political enemies on a massive scale. Bending the truth for his own gain, Stalin made Kirov was made to be a martyr for his regime and revolutionary cause. In an ingenious move, Stalin conducted the investigation himself, placing himself in the spotlight as the man who would single-handedly avenge the death of such a beloved figure. A Pravda article from December 4, three days after the assassination, proclaimed that, “In the first days when Leningrad was orphaned, Stalin rushed there. He went to the place where the crime against our country was committed. The enemy did not fire at Kirov personally. No! He fired at the proletarian revolution.”