Moscow trials

Stalin warning against an amputation policy of the party in 1925
Pravda gave details of a secret meeting between Stalin and his two late associates on the Troika, in which Zinoviev had descended so low as to suggest that Trotsky be removed by an assassin, in such a way that the deed could be attributed to some counter revolutionary agent. Stalins reply was characteristic: he did not deplore the moral aspect of the situation, which would probably never have occured to him, but he would not be party to such bad political tactics. “Why make a martyr out of Trotsky, who will certainly be defeated anyway?” he is alleged to have replied, adding the significant warning: “An amputation policy is full of dangers to the Party, the amputation method is dangerous and infectious: today one is amputated, another tomorrow, a third the day after. What will be left of the party in the end?”

David M Cole, Josef Stalin, P.68

Soviet officials Assasinated By The Bloc Of Trotskyites
Sergei Kirov, Gorky, Peshkov, Kuibyshev and Menzhinsky