Fifteenth Congress concludes after endorsing a collectivization drive

At an emergency conference, Chinese Communist leaders repudiated the previous alliance strategy and adopted a line emphasizing armed struggle and agrarian revolution. The shift reflected the party’s...

The Soviet Union and Persia signed a treaty of guarantee and neutrality as both governments sought to manage security in a region shaped by Russian and British imperial competition. Soviet diplomacy...

Supporters of Trotsky, Zinoviev and other opposition figures demonstrated during the tenth anniversary celebrations of the October Revolution. The party leadership treated the action as factional...

The party leadership expelled Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev after the opposition demonstrations and prolonged disputes over policy and internal democracy. Their removal from the party narrowed...

The Fifteenth Congress opened amid the defeat of the Left and United Opposition. Delegates debated agricultural procurement, industrialization and the future of NEP. The Congress became a turning...

By the end of 1927, state grain procurement had fallen short as peasants withheld grain they considered underpriced. The crisis exposed a central tension of NEP: the state wanted cheap food and...

A Central Committee directive sent to local party organizations demanded intensified grain procurement as the shortfall in state purchases deepened. Authorities used criminal law, searches and...

Stalin traveled to Siberia and directed local officials to use emergency measures to obtain grain, including arrests and pressure on wealthier peasants. The campaign marked a sharp retreat from...

The joint plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission met from 6 to 11 April, discussing the grain procurement crisis and the Shakhty case. Its resolutions called for forceful...

The Shakhty trial began with charges that engineers and technical specialists had sabotaged coal production. The highly publicized proceedings portrayed technical failures as political conspiracy...