Stalin meets Mao Zedong in Moscow

A Central Committee resolution denounced Vano Muradeli’s opera and condemned prominent composers including Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev. It made artistic work answerable to political...

The organization expelled Yugoslavia’s Communist Party after its leadership resisted Soviet control. The split showed that anti-fascist and socialist movements could face pressure to subordinate...

At the end of the VASKhNIL session, Trofim Lysenko’s doctrine was declared the official line, with Stalin’s support. Genetics was marginalized, research and teaching were disrupted, and scientists...

The Soviet Union and allied governments created Comecon to coordinate economic relations in the emerging Eastern Bloc. It offered a framework for trade and planning but also reinforced Moscow’s...

The successful test ended the U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons and intensified the arms race. Soviet scientific work and industrial mobilization occurred in a state system marked by secrecy, forced...

The treaty established a formal alliance and economic cooperation between the two states, replacing an earlier agreement tied to the Nationalist government. The relationship was consequential for...

North Korean forces invaded South Korea. Newly available Soviet records show Stalin approved Kim Il Sung’s plan after seeking assurances about Soviet and Chinese involvement. The war devastated Korean...

The congress met thirteen years after the previous one, reflecting the concentration of authority during wartime and postwar years. Stalin’s speech presented a global ideological struggle, while the...

The government accused mostly Jewish physicians of conspiring to murder Soviet leaders. The campaign intensified state antisemitism; Stalin’s death soon halted the case, and his successors later...

Stalin’s death ended nearly three decades of personal dictatorship. His rule left a transformed industrial and military power, alongside mass famine, executions, forced labor, deportations, and a...