The NEP decade closes under pressure for a “great turn”

Five defendants convicted in the Shakhty case were executed, while other death sentences were commuted. The punishment signaled the costs of being classified as an enemy of industrialization and...

The Sixth Congress of the Communist International opened and adopted a more confrontational analysis of capitalism and colonialism. Delegates debated the failures of the Chinese united-front...

The first Five-Year Plan period was launched from October 1928, although the plan was formally approved in 1929. It sought rapid industrial growth through state investment and output targets. The...

The eleventh anniversary of the October Revolution was celebrated amid growing emphasis on industrialization and political unity. Official narratives linked economic acceleration to the defense of...

In a speech to the Central Committee plenum, Stalin criticized the “Right deviation” as the party debated industrialization targets, agricultural policy and the control figures for 1928–29. The...

The plan launched a drive for rapid industrialization. Its targets recast investment and production as centrally negotiated priorities, with burdens borne unevenly by workers, peasants, and...

Delegates formally approved the first five-year plan, institutionalizing accelerated industrial growth. The plan’s political presentation obscured contested assumptions, labor costs, and regional...

State campaigns to collectivize livestock and settle pastoral communities disrupted mobile economies. Resistance and flight reflected local strategies and material survival, not simply opposition to...

The campaign to replace Arabic-derived scripts with Latin alphabets was framed as literacy reform and modernization. It also reorganized cultural institutions and later enabled further...

Stalin cast the turn toward collectivization and industrialization as a decisive victory. The address announced political expectations that preceded mass coercion and famine.