Culver City,
California
x
Maker: Aleksei Rezaev
The Kremlin Games
Date Made: 1990-1991
Country: Soviet Union
Measurements: 88 cm x 65 cm; 34 5/8 in x 25 9/16 in
The painting shows Stalin and Kirov as chess pieces on a chessboard. There is blood on the base of the Stalin chess piece and Kirov’s chess piece with blood streaming down the right side of his head is about to fall over. Four other silhouettes of chess pieces that have fallen behind him, all have blood on them. Two dark chess pieces stand in the background in front of an outline of the red wall of the Kremlin. "The Kremlin Games" refers to Stalin's alleged orders to assassinate Leningrad party leader Sergey Kirov in 1934. Kirov, a former Bolshevik revolutionary during the Tsarist era, had been a close friend and ally of Stalin’s, acting as the more personable and charismatic face of the Communist Party elite. His leniency with party dissidents in 1934, as well as his rising popularity in Leningrad, a city that Stalin despised for its European attitudes, turned Kirov from a friend into a threat in Stalin’s eyes. Although no official investigation has turned up evidence that conclusively links Stalin and the NKVD to Kirov’s murder, the string of deaths that followed of NKVD officers, the assassin’s wife, family members, and Kirov’s bodyguard all point to the idea that Stalin was behind his assassination. Kirov’s death was used as a starting point for Stalin’s period of the Great Purges; he used the murder as an excuse to thoroughly cleanse all Party officials that he suspected of being capable of undermining his power.
Accession Number: 2009.053.211
Item Name: Painting
Credit Line: The Ferris Russian Collection, Donated by Tom and Jeri Ferris
Collection/Series: The Ferris Russian Collection, Donated by Tom and Jeri Ferris