Stalin and the Communist Party

By danielwalsh1601

  • Formation of Sovnarkom

  • Lenin dies

  • Stalin prevents Trotsky from attending Lenin's funeral

  • Stalin turns on Zinoviev/Kamenev

    Stalin now turned on his former allies. He joined Bukharin who was promoting the ‘right’ model and a continuation of the NEP. Stalin introduced his idea: ‘Socialism in one country’. Zinoviev and Kamenev adopted the ‘right’ model which promoted the idea of rapid industralisation. They even tried to ally with Trotsky against the ‘right’, but he refused to work with them. Stalin had by now sidelined Trotsky, but also Zinoviev and Kamenev, who were temporarily expelled from the party.

  • 13th Party Congress

    The triumvirate of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev isolated and defeated Trotsky at the 1924 13th Party Congress following Trotsky’s criticism of party centralisation and bureaucratisation. Trotsky wrote Lessons of October attacking Zinoviev and Kamenev for opposing Lenin in October 1917. They brought up Trotsky’s disagreements with Lenin before 1917. Stalin simply had to sit there and watch his enemies tear each other apart.

  • Collectivisation was introduced

    In May 1929, the new Five-Year Plan for agriculture announced that five million households were to be put into collective farms by 1932-33.
    Peasants in a particular area were encouraged to put their individual plots of land together to form a collective farm. The idea was that they would work together and share everything, including what the farm produced.

  • Stalin turns on Bukharin

    Stalin realised that the NEP was not working and that major changes were required. Stalin turned on his ‘right’ allies and now promoted the ‘left’ model of rapid industrialisation. At the 1929 Party Congress, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky were removed from the Politburo and replaced with Stalin’s allies By now, Trotsky had been expelled from the Soviet Union. Stalin had control of the party

  • The disastrous famine caused by Collectivisation

    There was a disastrous harvest in 1932, the result was a famine of unimaginable severity. The state never admitted that a famine was taking place and did not ask for, or get, international aid. Indeed, food was still being exported from the USSR to other countries. To make matters worse, Stalin sent out requisitioning gangs to take what little grain there was. It has been estimated that at least 13 million peasants and possibly many more, died as a result of collectivisation.

  • The Great Purges

    The ‘Great Purges’ lasted from 1934 to 1938. During this period millions of Russians – in the Communist Party, the army, the arts and sciences, and many other walks of life – were arrested and either sent to labour camps or shot. A feature of the purges was public show trials, where old Bolsheviks confessed to crimes against the Soviet Union. Stalin’s position as leader was under threat in 1934

  • Muder of Sergei Kirov

    Murder, by Stalin's agents, of Sergei Kirov. Beginning of "Great Terror," which continues until 1938.

  • Zinoviev and Kamenev arrested

    Zinoviev, Kamenev, and others are arrested, accused of complicity in Kirov's assassination

  • Zinoviev and Kamenev executed

    First "Show Trial." Zinoviev, Kamenev, and their allies confess and are executed.

  • Outbreak of World War II

  • Trotsky assassinated by Stalin's agents in Mexico

  • Hitler invades Soviet Union

  • Stalin meets with Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta

  • Communists seize power in Czechoslovakia, cementing Soviet control of Eastern Europe.

  • Stalin celebrates his 70th birthday

  • Death of Stalin