CK's death and aftermath bears a striking resemblence to that of Sergei Kirov in the 1930s Soviet Union.

[Crunchy Frog]

I know that the Google AI Overview isn't the greatest source, but it's very concise and covers the major relevant points.

AI Overview
Sergei Kirov was created a martyr by Soviet propaganda following his assassination in 1934, a role Joseph Stalin used as a pretext for launching the Great Purge
. While the Soviet regime portrayed Kirov's death as a tragedy caused by internal enemies, historical evidence suggests that Stalin himself likely orchestrated the killing to eliminate a political rival and consolidate his power.
The official narrative

Assassination: On December 1, 1934, Kirov, the popular head of the Communist Party in Leningrad, was shot and killed by a disgruntled party member named Leonid Nikolayev.
Martyrdom: Immediately after the murder, the Soviet government moved to sanctify Kirov.
His funeral was a state event, and his ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall.
The city of Kirov and numerous other institutions and streets were named in his honor.
Official propaganda celebrated him as a hero of the working class who was killed by counter-revolutionary forces.

The political exploitation
Stalin used Kirov's engineered martyr status to justify a massive wave of repression.

Purge justification: Stalin claimed that Nikolayev was part of a larger conspiracy involving political opponents, including former Bolshevik leaders Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev.
Show trials: The ensuing trials led to the execution of Nikolayev and alleged accomplices. It also set the stage for the infamous Moscow Trials and the subsequent Great Purge, during which hundreds of thousands of people were executed or sent to forced-labor camps.
Elimination of rivals: The manufactured conspiracy provided Stalin with the perfect excuse to eliminate any remaining opposition within the party and further cement his own dictatorial power.

~snip~

Long-term impact
The Kirov assassination and the political theater that followed had a profound and lasting impact on Soviet history.

It served as the "catalyst" for the Great Purge, ushering in a brutal period of mass repression.
The event fundamentally transformed the Soviet political landscape, giving Stalin uncontested power and solidifying his totalitarian control.

I put "sergei kirov martyr" into the Google search engine.

[valleyrogue]

1. George Lincoln Rockwell is more apt.

Like Rockwell, Kirk will be forgotten in short order.

People move on, including white male supremacists.

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

[Turbineguy]

3. Trump killed Charlie.

Don't tell anybody. Very hush-hush.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. I don't necessarily think that Trump or his minions were behind it, though it's impossible to know for sure.

They were certainly ready and waiting to exploit it to the maximum possible level. That is beyond a doubt.

[Blue Full Moon]

6. Absolutely, that's why the overkill.

That Erica Kirk, tRump, and Maybelline Queen's Spectacular Spectacular. Trump when asked how he was dealing with Kirk's death. Those are the trucks for my ballroom. Loomer said that he was a traitor to MAGA. Fuentes called him an enemy. Put a target on him. Trump triggers his base.
Desperately trying to turn him into Horst Wessel or Sergei Kirov.

[Crunchy Frog]

4. I wanted to add that it's almost certain that Trump knows nothing about this history, but

his good buddy and sometime mentor, Vladimir Putin, is certainly familiar with it.

[Kaleva]

7. I mentioned Sergei Kirov in a couple of earlier threads

[pecosbob]

8. IIRC Stalin had Kirov killed because he became too popular and got more votes in a secret ballot for party secretary.

The 1934 Party Congress...out of nineteen hundred party delegates present for the vote, over a thousand were dead within a year. I've got it in an old documentary somewhere...think it was called Russia's War...Blood on the Snow. Great documentary, if a bit dated.

So...tangentially relevant, but draw your own parallels.

[Crunchy Frog]

9. This is true, and is included in the AI piece that I posted from.

I skipped over it because it wasn't really relevant to my point. Though it's certainly not impossible that Trump had him killed. I wouldn't put anything past him and his cronies. Still, the part that I'm mainly interested in is how the regime is using this death; turning him into a martyr and a saint, having an enormous state memorial for him, and using his death as a justification to crush Trump's perceived political enemies.

It's a fascinating subject, and it's been decades since I learned about it in a college class on Soviet history. The parallels just felt really eerie.