The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated Politbureau CC CPSS or simply Politbureau , was the highest political body of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and de facto a collective presidency of the USSR . It was founded in October 1917, and refounded in March 1919, at the 8th Congress of the Bolshevik Party . It was known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966. The Politburo's authority was significantly undermined during the August coup and subsequently ended three months later upon its dissolution in 1991.
207-470: On 18 August 1917, the top Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin , set up a political bureau—known first as Narrow Composition , and after 23 October 1917, as Political Bureau —specifically to direct the October Revolution , with only seven members (Lenin, Leon Trotsky , Grigory Zinoviev , Lev Kamenev , Joseph Stalin , Grigori Sokolnikov , and Andrei Bubnov ), but this precursor did not outlast
414-622: A Corsier conference they agreed to launch the paper from Munich , where Lenin relocated in September. Containing contributions from prominent European Marxists, Iskra was smuggled into Russia, becoming the country's most successful underground publication since 1850s. He first adopted the pseudonym Lenin in December 1901, possibly based on the Siberian River Lena ; he often used the fuller pseudonym of N. Lenin, and while
621-470: A Georgian seminary. After being discovered in possession of radical literature, Stalin was expelled in 1899. He devoted himself to revolutionary activities and became a member of the anti-tsarist, Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). Stalin joined the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin , whom he finally met in 1905. Tasked with raising money, Stalin resorted to criminal activity, Stalin took
828-436: A Lutheran by upbringing, was largely indifferent to Christianity , a view that influenced her children. Ilya Ulyanov was from a family of former serfs ; Ilya's father's ethnicity remains unclear, with suggestions that he was of Russian , Chuvash , Mordvin , or Kalmyk ancestry. Despite a lower-class background, he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan University before teaching at
1035-538: A Vice-chairman of the Soviet Union as evidence that he intended Trotsky to be his successor as head of government. According to historian Geoffrey Roberts , none of the Soviet figures questioned the authenticity of the document at the time. He noted that Stalin himself quoted the full passage of the testament and commented that "Indeed I am rude, Comrades, to those who rudely and perfidiously destroy and split
1242-528: A one-party state . Within the party, a Political Bureau (Politburo) and Organisation Bureau (Orgburo) were established to accompany the existing Central Committee ; decisions of these bodies had to be adopted by Sovnarkom and the Council of Labour and Defence . Lenin was the most significant figure in this governance structure, being Chairman of Sovnarkom and sitting on the Council of Labour and Defence,
1449-641: A party Congress . Members of the Central Committee were given a predetermined list of candidates for the Politburo (having only one candidate for each seat); for this reason, the election of the Politburo was usually passed unanimously. The more power the CPSU General Secretary had, the stronger the chance was that the Politburo membership were passed without serious dissent. Article 25 of the party Charter, said little to nothing on
1656-590: A triumvirate alliance with Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev in May 1922, against Trotsky . These allies prevented Lenin's Testament from being revealed to the Twelfth Party Congress in April 1923. Although Zinoviev and Kamenev were disconcerted by Stalin's power and some of his policies, they needed Stalin's help in opposing Trotsky's faction and to prevent Trotsky's possible succession to Lenin in
1863-949: A "bourgeoisie-democratic revolution" of the middle classes had to take place before a "socialist revolution" of the proletariat, Lenin believed that in Russia the proletariat could overthrow the Tsarist regime without an intermediate revolution. In February 1917, the February Revolution broke out in Saint Petersburg, renamed Petrograd at the beginning of the First World War, as industrial workers went on strike over food shortages and deteriorating factory conditions. The unrest spread to other parts of Russia, and fearing that he would be violently overthrown, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The State Duma took over control of
2070-522: A "socialist sense of justice". November also saw the military restructured with egalitarian measures, abolition of previous ranks, titles, and medals, and the establishment of soldiers' committees to elect commanders. Rise of Joseph Stalin Joseph Stalin started his career as a robber , gangster as well as an influential member and eventually the leader of the Bolshevik faction of
2277-683: A Marxist interpretation of societal development and counter the claims of the Narodniks. He wrote a paper on peasant economics; it was rejected by the liberal journal Russian Thought . In late 1893, Lenin moved to Saint Petersburg . There, he worked as a barrister's assistant and rose to a senior position in a Marxist revolutionary cell that called itself the Social-Democrats after the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany . Championing Marxism within
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#17327722937522484-608: A Politburo candidate member and First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Branch , in response to them accusing a member of the Ukrainian Central Committee of being anti-socialist said; "I don't believe it." When Yezhov proposed killing Bukharin and Rykov, Postyshev along with Stanislav Kosior and Grigory Petrovsky , opposed such a measure, proposing instead of handing them over to the courts. Molotov and Kliment Voroshilov , supported
2691-518: A Russian language translation of Marx and Friedrich Engels 's 1848 political pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto . He began to read the works of the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov , agreeing with Plekhanov's argument that Russia was moving from feudalism to capitalism and so socialism would be implemented by the proletariat , or urban working class, rather than the peasantry. This Marxist perspective contrasted with
2898-574: A Soviet-style working-class revolution. Stalin believed that the KMT bourgeoisie, together with all patriotic national liberation forces in the country, would defeat the western imperialists in China. "He is an unprincipled intriguer, who subordinates everything to the preservation of his own power. He changes his theory according to whom he needs to get rid of." Bukharin in conversations with Kamenev on Stalin's theoretical position, 1928. Trotsky wanted
3105-552: A Special Session (специальное судебное присутствие) of the Supreme Court of the USSR . The Tribunal was presided over by Vasili Ulrikh and included marshals Vasily Blyukher , Semyon Budyonny and Army Commanders Yakov Alksnis , Boris Shaposhnikov , Ivan Panfilovich Belov , Pavel Dybenko , and Nikolai Kashirin . Only Ulrikh, Budyonny and Shaposhnikov would survive the purges that followed. The Tukhachevsky trial triggered
3312-637: A ban on any opposition to official Central Committee policy (the Ban on Factions , a law which Stalin would later exploit to expel his enemies). Stalin played a decisive role in engineering the Red Army invasion of Georgia in February and March 1921, at a time when Georgia was the biggest Menshevik stronghold . Following the invasion, Stalin adopted particularly hardline, centralist policies towards Soviet Georgia , which included severe repression of opposition to
3519-491: A bomb. Before the attack could take place, the conspirators were arrested and tried, and Alexander was executed by hanging in May 1887. Despite the emotional trauma of his father's and brother's deaths, Lenin continued studying, graduated from school at the top of his class with a gold medal for exceptional performance, and decided to study law at Kazan University. Upon entering Kazan University in August 1887, Lenin moved into
3726-506: A close second place, 32 percent of members earned an education in technical engineering . Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [ O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin , was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist who was the founder and first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of
3933-645: A coalition government with other socialist parties. Though Sovnarkom refused a coalition with the Mensheviks or Socialist-Revolutionaries, it allowed the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries five cabinet posts in December 1917. This coalition lasted only until March 1918, when the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries left the government over disagreements about the Bolsheviks' approach to ending the First World War. At their 7th Congress in March 1918,
4140-507: A compromise brokered by Stalin, which handed over Bukharin and Rykov to the NKVD . Despite this opposition, Stalin and his closest associates began purging officials nationwide. In May 1937, Jānis Rudzutaks became the first Politburo member to be purged. In 1938, four other Politburo members were purged; Chubar, who personally telephoned Stalin crying trying to assure his innocence, Kosior, who confessed for anti-socialist crimes after his daughter
4347-510: A country controlled by the workers and power to the Soviets. Lenin and many other Bolsheviks expected proletariat revolution to sweep across Europe in days or months. The Provisional Government had planned for a Constituent Assembly to be elected in November 1917; despite Lenin's objections, Sovnarkom allowed the vote as scheduled. In the election , the Bolsheviks gained about a quarter of
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#17327722937524554-539: A country estate in Alakaevka village, Samara Oblast , in the hope that her son would turn his attention to agriculture. He had little interest in farm management, and his mother soon sold the land, keeping the house as a summer home. In September 1889, the Ulyanov family moved to the city of Samara , where Lenin joined Alexei Sklyarenko 's socialist discussion circle. There, Lenin fully embraced Marxism and produced
4761-666: A culturally Polish part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , he used Jagiellonian University 's library to conduct research. He stayed in close contact with the RSDLP, which was operating in the Russian Empire, convincing the Duma's Bolshevik members to split from their parliamentary alliance with the Mensheviks. In January 1913, Stalin, whom Lenin referred to as the "wonderful Georgian", visited him, and they discussed
4968-492: A family life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, in Shushenskoye the couple translated English socialist literature into Russian. There, Lenin wrote A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats to criticise German Marxist revisionists like Eduard Bernstein who advocated a peaceful, electoral path to socialism. He also finished The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), his longest book to date, which criticised
5175-583: A job in Nizhny Novgorod , rising to become Director of Primary Schools in the Simbirsk district six years later. Five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the government's plans for modernisation. In January 1882, his dedication to education earned him the Order of Saint Vladimir , which bestowed on him
5382-615: A leading role in the planning and execution of the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery . Following the October Revolution , Stalin was appointed leader of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities . He also took military positions in the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War . Stalin was one of the Bolsheviks' chief operatives in the Caucasus and grew closer to Lenin, who saw him as tough and loyal, capable of getting things done behind
5589-718: A lemon before being discarded. However, Chiang quickly reversed the tables in the Shanghai massacre of April 1927 by massacring the Communist Party in Shanghai midway through the Northern Expedition. While the catastrophic events in China completely vindicated Trotsky's criticism of Stalin's approach towards the Chinese Revolution, this paled insignificance compared to the demoralization that
5796-515: A massive subsequent purge of the Red Army . In September 1938, the People's Commissar for Defence, Voroshilov , reported that a total of 37,761 officers and commissars were dismissed from the army, 10,868 were arrested and 7,211 were condemned for anti-Soviet crimes. Since his falling out with Stalin in 1928–1929, Bukharin had written an endless stream of letters of repentance and admiration to Stalin. However, Stalin knew that Bukharin's repentance
6003-581: A meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee on 10 October, where he again argued that the party should lead an armed insurrection to topple the Provisional Government. This time the argument won with ten votes against two. Critics of the plan, Zinoviev and Kamenev, argued that Russian workers would not support a violent coup against the regime and that there was no clear evidence for Lenin's assertion that all of Europe
6210-594: A multi-party Constituent Assembly , but by 1918 centralised power in the new Communist Party. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror , and tens of thousands were killed or interned in concentration camps. Responding to devastation, famine , and popular uprisings, Lenin reversed his policy of war communism in 1921, and encouraged economic growth through the New Economic Policy . His administration defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in
6417-400: A nearby flat. There, he joined a zemlyachestvo , a form of university society that represented the men of a particular region. This group elected him as its representative to the university's zemlyachestvo council, and he took part in a December demonstration against government restrictions that banned student societies. The police arrested Lenin and accused him of being a ringleader in
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6624-474: A news sheet, Rabochee delo ( Workers' Cause ), he was among 40 activists arrested in St. Petersburg and charged with sedition. Refused legal representation or bail, Lenin denied all charges against him but remained imprisoned for a year before sentencing. He spent this time theorising and writing. In this work he noted that the rise of industrial capitalism in Russia had caused large numbers of peasants to move to
6831-551: A noted factionalist before the Bolshevik seizure of power, supported the promotion of people he had previously clashed with on important issues to the Politburo; Trotsky and Lenin had had several years of violent polemics between them, while Grigori Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev both opposed the Central Committee resolution that initiated the October Revolution. From 1917 to the mid-1920s, congresses were held annually,
7038-476: A one-man dictatorship within the party, Lenin countered, stating that he, like any other, could only implement policies by persuading the party. This happened on several occasions, such as in 1917 when he threatened to leave the party if it did not go along with the October Revolution , when he persuaded the party to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk , or with the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Lenin,
7245-442: A pamphlet, " Lenin's Testament ", urging the party to remove Stalin as General Secretary fearing his authoritarianism. When Lenin died in 1924, the party was thrown into chaos and a vicious power struggle began. Stalin, through his office as General Secretary , received advanced knowledge about Lenin's Testament and sought to delay its release. Upon its release to the party, Stalin offered to resign as General Secretary, but this
7452-556: A passage for them through Germany, with which Russia was then at war. Recognising that these dissidents could cause problems for their Russian enemies, the German government agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens to travel by train through their territory, among them Lenin and his wife. For political reasons, Lenin and the Germans agreed to a cover story that Lenin had travelled by sealed train carriage through German territory, but in fact
7659-528: A plan to close GUM and open some kind of cabinet of curiosities there." After everyone sat down, he asks: "Well, has the GUM issue been resolved?" Everyone, including Suslov, nodded their heads. The problem was closed once and for all without discussion. To be elected to the Politburo, a member had to serve on the Central Committee . The Central Committee formally elected the Politburo in the aftermath of
7866-597: A political and apparatical relationship. Yet, Stalin visited Lenin often, acting as his intermediary with the outside world. During this time, the two quarrelled over economic policy and how to consolidate the Soviet republics. One day, Stalin verbally swore at Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya , for breaching Politburo orders by helping Lenin communicate with Trotsky and others about politics; this greatly offended Lenin. As their relationship deteriorated, Lenin dictated increasingly disparaging notes on Stalin in what would become his testament . The veracity of Lenin dictating
8073-479: A power struggle. Lenin died on 21 January 1924. Stalin was given the honour of organizing his funeral. Upon Lenin's death, Stalin was officially hailed as his successor as the leader of the ruling Communist Party and of the Soviet Union itself. Against Lenin's wishes, he was given a lavish funeral and his body was embalmed and put on display. Thanks to Kamenev and Zinoviev's influence, the Central Committee decided that Lenin's Testament should not be made public. At
8280-480: A pure communist society . He began arguing for a Bolshevik-led armed insurrection to topple the government, but at a clandestine meeting of the party's central committee this idea was rejected. Lenin then headed by train and by foot to Finland, arriving at Helsinki on 10 August, where he hid away in safe houses belonging to Bolshevik sympathisers. In August 1917, while Lenin was in Finland, General Lavr Kornilov ,
8487-591: A reminder that Kamenev and himself had saved him from political downfall with the censure of Lenin's testament during the Thirteenth Congress . Stalin responded with the words: “But of course I know, I know very well - it’s an illness that afflicts dogs”. By 1925, Trotsky's foreign policy was disgraced. All revolutionary movements in Germany and elsewhere had failed. Moreover, these attempted revolutions led to an anti-communist atmosphere which fueled
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8694-474: A revolutionary government which took steps towards socialism, while his critics accuse him of establishing a dictatorship which oversaw mass killings and political repression . Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in Streletskaya Ulitsa, Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk , on 22 April 1870, and baptised six days later; as a child, he was known as Volodya the common nickname variant of Vladimir. He
8901-424: A series of Petrograd safe houses. Fearing that he would be killed, Lenin and fellow senior Bolshevik Grigory Zinoviev escaped Petrograd in disguise, relocating to Razliv . There, Lenin began work on the book that became The State and Revolution , an exposition on how he believed the socialist state would develop after the proletariat revolution, and how from then on the state would gradually wither away, leaving
9108-425: A speech to Bolshevik supporters condemning the Provisional Government and again calling for a continent-wide European proletarian revolution. Over the following days, he spoke at Bolshevik meetings, lambasting those who wanted reconciliation with the Mensheviks and revealing his " April Theses ", an outline of his plans for the Bolsheviks, which he had written on the journey from Switzerland. He publicly condemned both
9315-630: A spy, Roman Malinovsky , to act as a vocal Lenin supporter within the party. Various Bolsheviks expressed their suspicions about Malinovsky to Lenin, although it is unclear if the latter was aware of the spy's duplicity; it is possible that he used Malinovsky to feed false information to the Okhrana. In August 1910, Lenin attended the 8th Congress of the Second International , an international meeting of socialists, in Copenhagen as
9522-472: A stroke while recovering from surgery to remove a bullet lodged in his neck since a failed assassination attempt in August 1918. Severely debilitated, he went into semi-retirement and moved to his dacha in Gorki . After this, prominent Bolsheviks were concerned about who would take over if Lenin actually died. Lenin and Trotsky had more of a personal and theoretical relationship, while Lenin and Stalin had more of
9729-477: A subject of historical debate. Some historians have attributed his success primarily to his personal qualities. Contrarily, certain political theorists such as Trotsky have emphasised the role of external conditions in facilitating the growth of a Soviet bureaucracy which served as a power base for Stalin. Other historians have regarded the premature deaths of prominent Bolsheviks such as Vladimir Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov to have been key factors in his elevation to
9936-534: A theoretical justification. Zinoviev and Kamenev suddenly found themselves in a minority at the Fourteenth Party Conference in April 1925, over their belief that socialism could only be achieved internationally, which resulted in the triumvirate splitting up. This saw a strengthening of Stalin's alliance with Bukharin. According to Rogovin, Zinoviev would later lambast Stalin with the words, “Does comrade Stalin know what gratitude is ?”, as
10143-461: A trial, Kamenev and Zinoviev were both executed on 25 August 1936. Spearheading Stalin's purges was a Commissar called Nikolai Yezhov , a fervent Stalinist and a believer in violent repression. Yezhov continued to expand the lists of suspects to include all the old oppositionists as well as entire nationalities, such as the Poles . Stalin distrusted the Soviet secret police – the NKVD – which
10350-549: Is a system in which higher bodies are responsible to lower bodies and where every member is subordinate to party decisions). The nature of democratic centralism had changed by 1929, and freedom of expression , which had been previously tolerated within the party, was replaced with monolithic unity. This was achieved with Stalin's defeat of rival factions such as the Left Opposition and the Right Opposition . It
10557-471: Is approved,' said Brezhnev after a few more moments of silence. Makarov put his hand on my shoulder, whispering, 'Okay, Arkady, that's it. You can go.'" Nevertheless, there were times where the General Secretary would override all the other members by making his opinion clear and implying that dissent would not be tolerated. Mikhail Smirtyukov , recalled one such Politburo meeting. While Brezhnev
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#173277229375210764-621: Is generally believed that under Stalin the Politburo's powers were reduced compared to the General Secretary . Stalin defeated the Left Opposition led by Trotsky by allying himself with the rightists within the Politburo; Nikolai Bukharin , Aleksey Rykov , and Mikhail Tomsky . After defeating the Left Opposition, Stalin began attacking the rightists (referred to as the Right Opposition) through his supporters in
10971-650: The Central Committee of the German Communist Party became victims of Stalinist terror. Repressive measures were also enforced upon the Hungarian , Yugoslav and other Polish Communist parties. In Western historiography , Stalin is considered one of the worst and most notorious figures in modern history. Biographer and historian Isaac Deutscher highlighted the totalitarian character of Stalinism and its suppression of " socialist inspiration". His ability to assume absolute power has remained
11178-455: The July Days , took place while Lenin was away, but upon learning that demonstrators had violently clashed with government forces, he returned to Petrograd and called for calm. Responding to the violence, the government ordered the arrest of Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks, raiding their offices, and publicly alleging that he was a German agent provocateur . Evading arrest, Lenin hid in
11385-521: The N did not stand for anything, a popular misconception later arose that it represented Nikolai . Under this pseudonym, in 1902 he published his most influential publication to date, the pamphlet What Is to Be Done? , which outlined his thoughts on the need for a vanguard party to lead the proletariat to revolution. Nadya joined Lenin in Munich and became his secretary. They continued their political agitation, as Lenin wrote for Iskra and drafted
11592-667: The October Revolution , in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the regime. Lenin's government redistributed land to the peasantry, issued a number of legislative decrees , nationalised banks and industry, withdrew from the war by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers , and promoted world revolution through the Communist International . It initially shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and allowed
11799-670: The Paris Commune of 1871 , which he considered an early prototype for a proletarian government. Financed by his mother, he stayed in a Swiss health spa before travelling to Berlin , where he studied for six weeks at the Staatsbibliothek and met the Marxist Wilhelm Liebknecht . Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary publications, he travelled to various cities distributing literature to striking workers. While involved in producing
12006-445: The Penza Institute for the Nobility . In mid-1863, Ilya married Maria, the well-educated daughter of a wealthy Swedish Lutheran mother and a Russian Jewish father who had converted to Christianity and worked as a physician. According to historian Petrovsky-Shtern , it is likely that Lenin was unaware of his mother's half-Jewish ancestry, which was only discovered by Anna after his death. Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained
12213-458: The People's Commissar for Heavy Industry , refused to acknowledge Stalin's projected economic growth targets, claiming that the majority in the Politburo supported his position. Sergey Kirov , who had turned down an offer to take Stalin's place as General Secretary before the 17th Congress, opposed many of Stalin's repressive policies, and tried throughout 1934 to moderate them. Several scholars have viewed Ordzhonikidze's and Kirov's outspokenness as
12420-426: The Republic of China . In reality, however, the Republic controlled very little of the country. Much of China was divided between various regional warlords. The Republican government established a new "nationalist people's army and a national people's party" — the Kuomintang . In 1920, the Kuomintang opened relations with Soviet Russia. With Soviet help, the Republic of China built up the nationalist people's army. With
12627-491: The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party . He served as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from April 3, 1922 until the official (and temporary) abolition of the office during the 19th Party Congress in October 1952 and absolute leader of the USSR from January 21, 1924 until his death on March 5, 1953. Stalin began his political activity after being exposed to Marxism and other left-wing thinkers while studying in
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#173277229375212834-601: The Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. The founder and leader of the Bolsheviks , Lenin led the October Revolution which established the world's first socialist state . His government won the Russian Civil War and consolidated power in a one-party state under the Communist Party . Ideologically a Marxist , his developments to the ideology are called Leninism . Born into a middle-class family in Simbirsk , Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother 's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against
13041-443: The Soviet Union . It ordered the Central Committee to appoint a five-member Politburo to decide on questions too urgent to await full Central Committee deliberation. The original members of the Politburo were Lenin , Trotsky , Stalin , Kamenev , and Nikolai Krestinsky . The Soviet system was based upon the system conceived by Lenin , often referred to as Leninism . Certain historians and political scientists credit Lenin for
13248-484: The Thirteenth Party Congress in May 1924, it was read out only to the heads of the provincial delegations. Trotsky did not want to appear divisive so soon after Lenin's death and did not seize the opportunity to demand Stalin's removal. According to Stalin's secretary, Boris Bazhanov , Stalin was jubilant over Lenin's death while “publicly putting on the mask of grief”. In the months following Lenin's death, Stalin's disputes with Zinoviev and Kamenev intensified. While
13455-501: The Tsarist government , he devoted the following years to a law degree before relocating to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and becoming a prominent Marxist activist. In 1897, Lenin was arrested for sedition and exiled to Siberia for three years. He then moved to Western Europe, where he became a key figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party . In the party's 1903 schism, he led his Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov 's Mensheviks . Lenin briefly returned to Russia during
13662-401: The population censuses , during these years the Soviet Union had a composition of between 51% (in 1989 ) and 58% (in 1939 ) Russian, between 15% (in 1989) and 21% (in 1926 ) Ukrainian, between 1.2% (in 1926) and 1.4% (in 1989) Georgian, and between 0.5% (in 1989) and 1.8% (in 1926) Jewish. In general, in the first half of the Politburo's existence, there was a higher ethnic representation than
13869-426: The "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats ; around 200 copies were illegally printed in 1894. Hoping to cement connections between his Social-Democrats and Emancipation of Labour , a group of Russian Marxists based in Switzerland , Lenin visited the country to meet group members Plekhanov and Pavel Axelrod . He proceeded to Paris to meet Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue and to research
14076-411: The 1920s progressed, Stalin used his position to expel critics within the party and tightened his grip. Stalin's alliance with the party's right wing ended when Stalin decided to proceed with the First Five Year Plan , abandoning the New Economic Policy . Stalin defeated his opponents within the party by 1928, ending internal power struggles. From 1929 onwards Stalin's leadership over the party and state
14283-502: The 1960s onwards the majority of new members had workers' backgrounds, as expected. What is strange, however, is that from 1975 to 1981, a sudden increase of people of peasant background took place. When looking at first profession, the majority of members had worked as workers, but the majority of them had attended higher education later in their life (the majority of them choosing engineering ). 43 percent of Politburo members attained higher education credentials during their life, while in
14490-447: The Bolshevik Centre to Paris; although Lenin disagreed, he moved to the city in December 1908. Lenin disliked Paris, lambasting it as "a foul hole", and while there he sued a motorist who knocked him off his bike. Lenin became very critical of Bogdanov's view that Russia's proletariat had to develop a socialist culture to become a successful revolutionary vehicle. Instead, Lenin favoured a vanguard of socialist intelligentsia who would lead
14697-553: The Bolshevik faction between his and Bogdanov's followers, accusing the latter of deviating from Marxism. In May 1908, Lenin lived briefly in London, where he used the British Museum Reading Room to write Materialism and Empirio-criticism , an attack on what he described as the "bourgeois-reactionary falsehood" of Bogdanov's relativism. Lenin's factionalism began to alienate increasing numbers of Bolsheviks, including his former close supporters Alexei Rykov and Lev Kamenev . The Okhrana exploited his factionalist attitude by sending
14904-550: The Bolshevik newspaper Pravda , and giving public speeches in Petrograd aimed at converting workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants to his cause. Sensing growing frustration among Bolshevik supporters, Lenin suggested an armed political demonstration in Petrograd to test the government's response. Amid deteriorating health, he left the city to recuperate in the Finnish village of Neivola. The Bolsheviks' armed demonstration,
15111-729: The Bolsheviks changed their name from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to the Russian Communist Party, as Lenin wanted to distance his group from the increasingly reformist German Social Democratic Party and emphasize its goal of a communist society. Although ultimate power officially rested with Sovnarkom and the Executive Committee (VTSIK) elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets (ARCS),
15318-738: The Bolsheviks regained dominance of the RSDLP at its Fifth Congress , held in London in May 1907. As the Tsarist government cracked down on opposition, both by disbanding Russia's legislative assembly, the Second Duma , and by ordering its secret police, the Okhrana , to arrest revolutionaries, Lenin fled Finland for Switzerland. There, he tried to exchange those banknotes stolen in Tiflis that had identifiable serial numbers on them. Alexander Bogdanov and other prominent Bolsheviks decided to relocate
15525-576: The Bolsheviks split completely with the Mensheviks; many Bolsheviks refused, and both groups attended the Third RSDLP Congress , held in London in April 1905. Lenin presented many of his ideas in the pamphlet Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution , published in August 1905. Here, he predicted that Russia's liberal bourgeoisie would be sated by a transition to constitutional monarchy and thus betray
15732-485: The Bolsheviks to return to the open political arena. Fearing a counter-revolution from right-wing forces hostile to socialism, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who dominated the Petrograd Soviet had been instrumental in pressuring the government to normalise relations with the Bolsheviks. Both the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had lost much popular support because of their affiliation with
15939-592: The Bolsheviks' activities, Lenin endorsed the idea of robbing post offices, railway stations, trains, and banks. Under the lead of Leonid Krasin , a group of Bolsheviks began carrying out such criminal actions, the best-known taking place in June 1907, when a group of Bolsheviks acting under the leadership of Joseph Stalin committed an armed robbery of the State Bank in Tiflis , Georgia. Although he briefly supported
16146-703: The Bolsheviks, and to opposition within the local Communist Party (e.g., the Georgian Affair of 1922), not to mention any manifestations of anti-Sovietism (the August Uprising of 1924). It was in the Georgian affairs that Stalin first began to play his own hand. Lenin, however, disliked Stalin's policy towards Georgia, as he believed that all Soviet states should be on equal standing with Russia, rather than be absorbed and subordinated to Russia. Grigory Zinoviev successfully had Stalin appointed to
16353-583: The Central Committee dismissed Rykov and replaced him with Molotov. After 1930, open criticism of Stalin within the Communist Party was virtually non-existent, though Stalin continued to hunt for discreet dissenters. Stalin dominated the Politburo (the policy-making branch of the Communist Party) through staunch allies such as Sergo Ordzhonikidze , Lazar Kaganovich , Vyacheslav Molotov , and Kliment Voroshilov . On 1 December 1934, Sergei Kirov
16560-517: The Central Committee treated Politburo replenishment as the responsibility of the Politburo itself. Politburo members usually picked successors who were around the same age, the result being the establishment of the gerontocracy of the Brezhnev Era . While the age steadily crept up during Khrushchev's leadership, members were replaced; for instance, 70 percent of the members elected to the Politburo in 1956 lost their seats in 1961. In contrast, all
16767-400: The Central Committee was convened at least once a month and the Politburo met once a week. With Joseph Stalin 's consolidation of power , the frequency of formal meetings declined. By the mid-1930s, the Central Committee met only once a month, and the Politburo convened at most once every third week. The Politburo was established, and worked within the framework of democratic centralism (that
16974-622: The Central Committee, and the Politburo. The only individual with comparable influence was Lenin's right-hand man, Yakov Sverdlov , who died in March 1919 as a result of the Spanish flu pandemic. In November 1917, Lenin and his wife took a two-room flat within the Smolny Institute; the following month, they went on a brief holiday in Halila, Finland. In January 1918, he survived an assassination attempt in Petrograd; Fritz Platten , who
17181-487: The Central Committee, upon elections. These amendments were removed from the party Charter under Leonid Brezhnev , and Article 25 now stated; "In the election of all party organs, from the primary party organization to the Central Committee of the CPSU, the principle of systematic replacement of personnel and the continuity of leadership is to be observed." The Brezhnev period saw, in complete contrast to Khrushchev's amendment,
17388-463: The Communist Party and his subsequent exile, Zinoviev and Kamenev capitulated almost immediately and called on their supporters to follow suit. They wrote open letters acknowledging their mistakes and were readmitted to the Communist Party in June 1928, after a six-month cooling-off period. They never regained their Central Committee seats, but they were given mid-level positions within the Soviet bureaucracy. Kamenev and Zinoviev were courted by Bukharin at
17595-571: The Communist Party and less bureaucracy. In October 1926, Stalin's supporters voted Trotsky out of the Politburo. During the years of 1926 and 1927, Soviet policy toward the Chinese Revolution became the ideological line of demarcation between Stalin and the United Opposition. The Chinese Revolution began on 10 October 1911, resulting in the abdication of the Chinese Emperor, Puyi , on 12 February 1912. Sun Yat-sen established
17802-666: The Communist Party itself, followed by Kamenev at the Fifteenth Party Congress in December 1927. At the Congress, where Kamenev acted as the United Opposition's spokesman due to Trotsky's and Zinoviev's expulsion, the United Opposition were unable to gain the support of more than a small minority of the Communist Party, and they were expelled after the Congress declared United Opposition views to be incompatible with Communist Party membership. While Trotsky remained firm in his opposition to Stalin after his expulsion from
18009-474: The Communist Party to complete an orthodox proletarian revolution and have clear class independence from the KMT. Stalin funded the KMT during the expedition. Stalin countered Trotskyist criticism by making a secret speech in which he said that Chiang's right-wing Kuomintang were the only ones capable of defeating the imperialists, that Chiang Kai-shek had funding from the rich merchants, and that his forces were to be utilized until squeezed for all usefulness like
18216-469: The Communist Party was de facto in control of Russia, as acknowledged by its members at the time. By 1918, Sovnarkom began acting unilaterally, citing a need for expediency, with the ARCS and VTSIK becoming increasingly marginalized, so the soviets no longer had a role in governing Russia. During 1918 and 1919, the government expelled Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries from the soviets. Russia had become
18423-481: The Communist Party. Stalin's revelation made Zinoviev, in particular, very unpopular with many inside the Communist Party. Trotsky remained silent throughout this Congress. In early 1926, Zinoviev and Kamenev drew closer to Trotsky and the Left Opposition, forming an alliance that became known as the United Opposition . The United Opposition demanded, among other things, greater freedom of expression within
18630-533: The Highest Stage of Capitalism , which argued that imperialism was a product of monopoly capitalism , as capitalists sought to increase their profits by extending into new territories where wages were lower and raw materials cheaper. He believed that competition and conflict would increase and that war between the imperialist powers would continue until they were overthrown by proletariat revolution and socialism established. He spent much of this time reading
18837-732: The Leningrad City Committee and member of the Secretariat, and Robert Eikhe , the First Secretary of the Siberian and West-Siberian District Committee, were elected Politburo candidate members. 1936 signaled the beginning of the Great Purge , a nationwide purge of what Stalin deemed as anti-socialist elements. The first victims of the purge were members and leaders of economic organizations. Not everyone in
19044-547: The Mensheviks accused Lenin of being a despot and autocrat. Enraged at the Mensheviks, Lenin resigned from the Iskra editorial board and in May 1904 published the anti-Menshevik tract One Step Forward, Two Steps Back . The stress made Lenin ill, and to recuperate he holidayed in Switzerland. The Bolshevik faction grew in strength; by spring 1905, the whole RSDLP Central Committee was Bolshevik, and in December they founded
19251-503: The Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries, who dominated the influential Petrograd Soviet , for supporting the Provisional Government, denouncing them as traitors to socialism. Considering the government to be just as imperialist as the Tsarist regime, he advocated immediate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, rule by soviets , the nationalisation of industry and banks, and the state expropriation of land, all with
19458-554: The NKVD under Yezhov's leadership, all of which gave the signal that Yezhov was falling from Stalin's favour. Yezhov eventually suffered a nervous breakdown and resigned as NKVD chief on 23 November 1938. Yezhov was replaced as NKVD chief by Lavrentiy Beria . Yezhov was executed on 4 February 1940. According to Trotskyist historian Vadim Rogovin , Stalin also had suppressed thousands of foreign communists capable of leading socialist change in their respective countries. Sixteen members of
19665-578: The Politburo (as well as the Central Committee) had to step down at each election to the Politburo, and that no members could be elected for more than three terms. The initiator of these changes, Khrushchev, the CPSU General Secretary, had served in the Politburo for 22 years. Instead of stepping down, Khrushchev made a rule which stated that members "who enjoyed great authority and possessed exceptional ability" could serve more than three terms, if they received more than 75 percent approval votes from
19872-596: The Politburo agreed with the purges, or the scope of them. Ordzhonikidze ridiculed the purge, and tried to save officials working in the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry. Stalin expected that Ordzhonikidze would support the purges, at least officially, but instead he wrote a speech condemning them. On 18 February 1937, Ordzhonikidze was found dead in his house, having killed himself. At the Central Committee plenum in February 1937, Stalin, Molotov, Zhdanov and Nikolai Yezhov began accusing leading officials of anti-socialist behavior, but they met opposition. Pavel Postyshev ,
20079-511: The Politburo from its establishment in 1919. This is not surprising, since the three most populous republics within the Soviet Union were ethnic Slavic; Byelorussia , Ukraine and Russia . From 1919 until 1991, 89 members of the Politburo were Russians (which makes up 68 percent). In distant second were Ukrainians, who had 11 members in the Politburo, making up 8 percent. In third place are both ethnic Jews and Georgians, who had 4 members respectively, making up 3 percent. For comparison, according to
20286-498: The Politburo members elected in 1966 were reelected in 1971. Even more worrisome, 12 out of 19 members elected in 1966 were reelected in 1981. By the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982, the median age of the politburo was 70. This age development was finally put to a halt under Gorbachev. From 1985 onwards, the age of Politburo members steadily declined. Fifty-nine percent of Politburo members (both candidate and full) were of rural origins, while 41 percent were urban. The first members of
20493-426: The Politburo were predominantly from urban areas. For instance, on the 9th Politburo, two out of eight (Trotsky and Mikhail Kalinin ) were born in rural areas. From the 1930s onwards, the majority of Politburo members had a father who worked either as a peasant or as a worker. This is strange, considering that one would assume a rise in representation of the intelligentsia as the Soviet Union became more advanced. From
20700-438: The Politburo's existence. Serving in the Politburo was a part-time function, and members served concurrently in either the party, state, trade union , security or military administrations (or all of them concurrently). Until the 1950s, most members served in state positions, but this changed at the 20th Congress (held in 1956) when 47% percent of Politburo members served in the central party apparatus while another 47% served in
20907-541: The Politburo, the Central Committee, and the Control Commission. Stalin and his companion supported an undemocratic interpretation of Lenin's What Is to Be Done? . Throughout the late-1920s, Politburo member Lazar Kaganovich (a Stalin ally), wrote and campaigned for a party organisational by-law which reduced intra-party democracy in favour of hierarchy and centralism . With the defeat of the other factions, these interpretations became party law. To strengthen
21114-403: The Politburo; Elena Stasova , Yekaterina Furtseva , Alexandra Biryukova and Galina Semenova . Furtseva, Biryukova and Semenova reached the Politburo under the leadership of reformist party leaders; Nikita Khrushchev and Mikhail Gorbachev . The average age of the Politburo was 39 in 1919, and the Politburo continued to age more-or-less consistently until 1985. The reason for this being that
21321-461: The Provisional Government and its unpopular continuation of the war. The Bolsheviks capitalised on this, and soon the pro-Bolshevik Marxist Trotsky was elected leader of the Petrograd Soviet. In September, the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the workers' sections of both the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets. Recognising that the situation was safer for him, Lenin returned to Petrograd. There he attended
21528-801: The RSDLP programme, attacking ideological dissenters and external critics, particularly the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR), a Narodnik agrarian-socialist group founded in 1901. Despite remaining a Marxist, he accepted the Narodnik view on the revolutionary power of the Russian peasantry, accordingly, penning the 1903 pamphlet To the Village Poor . To evade Bavarian police, Lenin moved to London with Iskra in April 1902, where he befriended fellow Russian-Ukrainian Marxist Leon Trotsky . Lenin fell ill with erysipelas and
21735-748: The RSDLP's representative, following this with a holiday in Stockholm with his mother. With his wife and sisters, he then moved to France, settling first in Bombon and then Paris. Here, he became a close friend to the French Bolshevik Inessa Armand ; some biographers suggest that they had an extra-marital affair from 1910 to 1912. Meanwhile, at a Paris meeting in June 1911, the RSDLP Central Committee decided to move their focus of operations back to Russia, ordering
21942-473: The Russian Civil War, after which several non-Russian nations that had broken away from the empire after 1917 were re-united in the new Soviet Union in 1922; others, notably Poland, gained independence. Lenin suffered three debilitating strokes in 1922 and 1923 before his death in 1924, with Joseph Stalin succeeding him as the pre-eminent figure in the Soviet government. Widely considered one of
22149-761: The Russian Republic into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic . The government also switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar , aligning Russia with Europe. In November 1917, Sovnarkom abolished Russia's legal system, replacing it with "revolutionary conscience". Courts were replaced by Revolutionary Tribunals for counter-revolutionary crimes, and People's Courts for civil and criminal cases, instructed to follow Sovnarkom decrees and
22356-405: The Soviet Union in February 1929 and lived the rest of his life in exile. With Trotsky, Stalin then pivoted to form an alliance with the party's right wing. Using his position as General Secretary, Stalin began to fill the Soviet bureaucracy with loyalists. After Lenin's death, Stalin traveled across the USSR to deliver lectures on Leninist philosophy and began framing himself as Lenin's successor. As
22563-491: The Soviet masses felt at such a big setback for socialist revolution in China, with this demoralization aiding Stalin and his allies in the Communist Party and the Soviet state. Attacks against the United Opposition increased in volatility and ferocity. Many supporters of Kamenev and Zinoviev's group, as well as most from the Workers Opposition grouping, had left the United Opposition by mid-1927, changing sides under
22770-405: The actual relationship between the Politburo and the Central Committee. Until 1961, Article 25 stated (with several changes) that the Central Committee "forms" or "organizes" the Politburo. It was not until 1961, under Nikita Khrushchev , that the party Charter was amended; stating that the Politburo was appointed through "secret elections". The amended party Charter stated that at least one-third of
22977-754: The agrarian-socialists and promoted a Marxist analysis of Russian economic development. Published under the pseudonym of Vladimir Ilin, upon publication it received predominantly poor reviews. After his exile, Lenin settled in Pskov in early 1900. There, he began raising funds for a newspaper, Iskra ( Spark ), a new organ of the Russian Marxist party, now calling itself the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In July 1900, Lenin left Russia for Western Europe; in Switzerland he met other Russian Marxists, and at
23184-595: The backs of one's rivals. In practice, Soviet Leninism's democratic centralism often followed a style of unanimous consent rather than majority vote . This style of consensus decision-making had roots not only in the era of the Great Terror , also known as the Yezhovshchina, but also in Brezhnev's carefully cultivated culture of collective decision-making. Shevchenko said, "While the Politburo considered
23391-560: The beginning of his short and ill-fated struggle with Stalin in the summer of 1928. This activity was soon reported to Stalin and was later used against Bukharin as proof of his factionalism. Trotsky, firmer than ever in his opposition to Stalin, was exiled to Alma-ata in January 1928 and was exiled from the Soviet Union itself in February 1929, sent into exile in Turkey. From his exile, Trotsky continued to oppose Stalin, right up until Trotsky
23598-543: The case. Kamenev and Zinoviev were interrogated again, and the exiled Trotsky was now accused of being the leading mastermind in Kirov's murder. As in claimed by Montefiore, in July 1936, Stalin promised Kamenev and Zinoviev (through NKVD chief, Genrikh Yagoda ) that there would be no executions or persecution of their families if they confessed to conspiring with Trotsky. Stalin's promise was soon broken. A few weeks later, after
23805-446: The cities, where they formed a proletariat. From his Marxist perspective, Lenin argued that this Russian proletariat would develop class consciousness , which would in turn lead them to violently overthrow Tsarism , the aristocracy , and the bourgeoisie and to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat that would move toward socialism. In February 1897, Lenin was sentenced without trial to three years' exile in eastern Siberia. He
24012-558: The city of Kazan , but not the university. On his return, he joined Nikolai Fedoseev 's revolutionary circle, through which he discovered Karl Marx 's 1867 book Capital . This sparked his interest in Marxism , a socio-political theory that argued that society developed in stages, that this development resulted from class struggle , and that capitalist society would ultimately give way to socialist society and then communist society . Wary of his political views, Lenin's mother bought
24219-656: The civil war for freedom is blazing up. Moscow and the South, the Caucasus and Poland are ready to join the proletariat of St. Petersburg. The slogan of the workers has become: Death or Freedom! — Lenin on the Revolution of 1905 In response to the revolution of 1905, which had failed to overthrow the government, Tsar Nicholas II accepted a series of liberal reforms in his October Manifesto . In this climate, Lenin felt it safe to return to Saint Petersburg. Joining
24426-594: The closure of the Bolshevik Centre and its newspaper, Proletari . Seeking to rebuild his influence in the party, Lenin arranged for a party conference to be held in Prague in January 1912, and although 16 of the 18 attendants were Bolsheviks, he was heavily criticised for his factionalist tendencies and failed to boost his status within the party. Moving to Kraków in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria ,
24633-560: The combined meetings of the Central Committee and the Control Commission into the party's " parliament ". The combined meetings of these two would hold the Politburo responsible, while at the same time guard the Politburo from factionalism . Admitting that organizational barriers may be inadequate to safeguard the party from one-man dictatorship, Lenin recognized the importance of individuals. His testament tried to solve this crisis by reducing both Stalin's and Leon Trotsky 's powers. Although some of his contemporaries accused Lenin of creating
24840-478: The commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, sent troops to Petrograd in what appeared to be a military coup attempt against the Provisional Government. Premier Alexander Kerensky turned to the Petrograd Soviet, including its Bolshevik members, for help, allowing the revolutionaries to organise workers as Red Guards to defend the city. The coup petered out before it reached Petrograd, but the events had allowed
25047-408: The continent to convert the "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" with the proletariat pitted against the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. In July 1916, Lenin's mother died, but he was unable to attend her funeral. Her death deeply affected him, and he became depressed, fearing that he too would die before seeing the proletarian revolution. In September 1917, Lenin published Imperialism,
25254-559: The country, establishing the Russian Provisional Government and converting the Empire into a new Russian Republic . When Lenin learned of this from his base in Switzerland, he celebrated with other dissidents. He decided to return to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks but found that most passages into the country were blocked due to the ongoing conflict. He organised a plan with other dissidents to negotiate
25461-539: The demonstration; he was expelled from the university, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs exiled him to his family's Kokushkino estate. There, he read voraciously, becoming enamoured with Nikolay Chernyshevsky 's 1863 pro-revolutionary novel What Is to Be Done? Lenin's mother was concerned by her son's radicalisation, and was instrumental in convincing the Interior Ministry to allow him to return to
25668-484: The development of the nationalist army, a Northern Expedition was planned to smash the power of the warlords of the northern part of the country. This Northern Expedition became a point of contention over foreign policy by Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin tried to persuade the small Chinese Communist Party to merge with the Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalists to bring about a bourgeois revolution before attempting to bring about
25875-593: The economy , a position which alienated Bukharin and the Right Opposition, but which appeared close to what the Left Opposition had advocated before they were banned. Stalin accused Bukharin of factionalism and capitalist tendencies. The other Politburo members sided with Stalin, and labelled Bukharin a "Right Deviationist" from Marxist–Leninist principles. Bukharin was ejected from the Politburo in November 1929. Stalin's agricultural policies were also criticized by fellow Politburo member Mikhail Kalinin . In
26082-446: The editorial board of Novaya Zhizn ( New Life ), a radical legal newspaper run by Maria Andreyeva , he used it to discuss issues facing the RSDLP. He encouraged the party to seek out a much wider membership, and advocated the continual escalation of violent confrontation, believing both to be necessary for a successful revolution. Recognising that membership fees and donations from a few wealthy sympathisers were insufficient to finance
26289-401: The event; the Central Committee continued with the political functions. However, due to practical reasons, usually fewer than half of the members attended the regular Central Committee meetings during this time, even though they decided all key questions. The 8th Party Congress in 1919 formalized this reality and re-established what would later on become the true center of political power in
26496-494: The evolution of the Soviet political system after his death. Others, such as Leonard Schapiro , argue that the system itself evolved from an inner-party democratic system to a monolithic one in 1921, with the establishment of the Control Commission , the ban on factions and the power of the Central Committee to expel members they deemed unqualified. These rules were implemented to strengthen party discipline. However,
26703-507: The existence of the USSR. While nominally subordinate to the Central Committee and the Party Congress, in practice the Politburo was the true center of power in the CPSU, and its decisions de facto had the force of law. Arkady Shevchenko , like many Soviet technical experts, once attended the part of a Politburo meeting that touched on his area of expertise, and he often prepared his boss Andrei Gromyko for meetings. He described
26910-470: The failed Revolution of 1905 , and during the First World War campaigned for its transformation into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution , which, as a Marxist, he believed would cause the end of capitalism and the rise of socialism . After the February Revolution of 1917 ousted Tsar Nicholas II and established a Provisional Government , Lenin returned to Russia and played a leading role in
27117-413: The future of non-Russian ethnic groups in the Empire. Due to the ailing health of both Lenin and his wife, they moved to the rural town of Biały Dunajec , before heading to Bern for Nadya to have surgery on her goitre . The [First World] war is being waged for the division of colonies and the robbery of foreign territory; thieves have fallen out–and to refer to the defeats at a given moment of one of
27324-536: The government in the Winter Palace and overcame it and arrested its ministers after the cruiser Aurora , controlled by Bolshevik seamen, fired a blank shot to signal the start of the revolution. During the insurrection, Lenin gave a speech to the Petrograd Soviet announcing that the Provisional Government had been overthrown. The Bolsheviks declared the formation of a new government, the Council of People's Commissars , or Sovnarkom. Lenin initially turned down
27531-601: The greatest continuity in the Politburo in its history. Article 25 of the Charter remained unchanged under the successive leadership of Yuri Andropov , Konstantin Chernenko and Mikhail Gorbachev . Between 1919 and 1990, 42 members who served as candidate members were not promoted to full member status of the Politburo. Similarly, 32 full members of the Politburo never served as candidate members. Six members who had served as full members were demoted to candidate status during
27738-567: The growing political pressure and espousing their support for Stalin. Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev grew increasingly isolated and were ejected from the Central Committee in October 1927. On 7 November 1927, on the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution , the United Opposition held a demonstration in Red Square, Moscow, along with Vladimir Lenin 's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya . On 12 November 1927, Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from
27945-564: The highest organ of the party when the party Congress and the Central Committee were not in session. The Politburo, along with the Secretariat and the Organizational Bureau (Orgburo) until 1952, was one of three permanent bodies of the party. The General Secretary , the party leader, served as ex officio chairman of the Politburo (however, no formal rule stipulated such activity). 28 politburos were elected throughout
28152-603: The idea of reconciliation between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Lenin's advocacy of violence and robbery was condemned by the Mensheviks at the Fourth RSDLP Congress , held in Stockholm in April 1906. After Lenin escaped to Finland from Russia, he was involved in setting up a Bolshevik Centre in Kuokkala , Grand Duchy of Finland , which was at the time an autonomous state controlled by the Russian Empire, before
28359-413: The intention of establishing a proletariat government and pushing toward a socialist society. By contrast, the Mensheviks believed that Russia was insufficiently developed to transition to socialism and accused Lenin of trying to plunge the new Republic into civil war. Over the coming months Lenin campaigned for his policies, attending the meetings of the Bolshevik Central Committee, prolifically writing for
28566-463: The item for which I was responsible, I sat with Kuznetsov , Kornienko , and [Vasily] Makarov, behind Gromyko at the long table in the Kremlin. Brezhnev asked whether all members of the Politburo had received the draft U.S.-Soviet documents in time and if they had studied them. Most of the members nodded silent assent. 'Can I assume that the draft is approved?' Brezhnev asked. No one spoke. 'The draft
28773-557: The leading position of Chairman , suggesting Trotsky for the job, but other Bolsheviks insisted and ultimately Lenin relented. Lenin and other Bolsheviks then attended the Second Congress of Soviets on 26 and 27 October and announced the creation of the new government. Menshevik attendees condemned the illegitimate seizure of power and the risk of civil war. In the early days of the regime, Lenin adjusted his rhetoric so as not to alienate Russia's population, and spoke about having
28980-516: The military sector had had representatives in the Politburo since the 8th Politburo (in 1919). Defense ministers who had served in the Politburo are Leon Trotsky , Mikhail Frunze , Kliment Voroshilov , Nikolai Bulganin , Georgy Zhukov and Dmitry Ustinov among others. Similarly, several leading Politburo officials had participated in either the Russian Revolution , the Russian Civil War or World War II . Ethnic Slavs dominated
29187-428: The most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. Under Stalin, he became an ideological figurehead of Marxism–Leninism and a prominent influence over the international communist movement . A controversial and highly divisive figure, Lenin is praised by his supporters for establishing
29394-470: The need for a strong leadership with complete control over the party. Lenin's supporters were in the majority, and he termed them the "majoritarians" ( bol'sheviki in Russian; Bolsheviks ); in response, Martov termed his followers the "minoritarians" ( men'sheviki ; Mensheviks ). Arguments between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks continued after the conference; the Bolsheviks accused their rivals of being opportunists and reformists who lacked discipline, while
29601-775: The newspaper Vperyod ( Forward ). In January 1905, the Bloody Sunday massacre of protesters in St. Petersburg sparked a spate of civil unrest in the Russian Empire known as the Revolution of 1905 . Lenin urged Bolsheviks to take a greater role in the events, encouraging violent insurrection. In doing so, he adopted SR slogans regarding "armed insurrection", "mass terror", and "the expropriation of gentry land", resulting in Menshevik accusations that he had deviated from orthodox Marxism. In turn, he insisted that
29808-399: The office of the General Secretary became paramount. The Politburo, which was nominally responsible to the Central Committee and the Party Congress, became responsible to the General Secretary. The General Secretary, the formal head of the Secretariat and the Orgburo, "came to exercise enormous weight in decision-making." The Secretariat and Orgburo were responsible for personnel appointments in
30015-504: The party continued under Lenin and the early post-Lenin years to try to establish democratic procedures within the party. For instance, by 1929, leading party members began criticizing the party apparatus, represented by the Secretariat headed by Stalin, of having too much control over personnel decisions. Lenin addressed such questions in 1923, in his articles "How We Should Reorganize the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate" and "Better Fewer but Better". In these, Lenin wrote of his plan to turn
30222-438: The party. He prepared the agenda for the Politburo meetings, directing the course of meetings. As General Secretary, he appointed new local party leaders, establishing a patronage network loyal to him. In 1922, Lenin's health was rapidly deteriorating alongside his relationship with Stalin. Lenin and Trotsky had formed a bloc alliance to counter bureaucratisation of the party and the growing influence of Stalin. Lenin wrote
30429-477: The party. I have not hidden this, and still do not". The memorandum contains information criticizing Stalin's rude manners, excessive power, ambition and politics, and suggested that Stalin should be removed from the position of General Secretary . One of Lenin's secretaries showed Stalin the notes, whose contents shocked him. On 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered his most debilitating stroke, which ended his political career. During Lenin's semi-retirement, Stalin forged
30636-463: The position of leadership in the Soviet Union. In part, because Sverdlov served as the original chairman of the party secretariat and was considered a natural candidate for the position of General Secretary. Trotsky attributed his appointment to the position of General Secretary to the initial recommendation of Grigory Zinoviev . This view has been supported by several historians. According to Russian historian, Vadim Rogovin , Stalin's election to
30843-419: The post of General Secretary in March 1922, with Stalin officially starting in the post on 3 April 1922. Stalin still held his posts in the Orgburo , the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate and the Commissariat for Nationalities Affairs, though he agreed to delegate his workload to subordinates. With this power, he would steadily place his supporters in positions of authority. On 25 May 1922, Lenin suffered
31050-478: The republican-level. Security officials had historically had a low-profile on the Politburo. From 1953 until 1973, no officials representing the security sector served in the Politburo as full members; the last two being Lavrentiy Beria and Nikolay Ignatov . This tradition was put to an end with the elevation of Yuri Andropov , the KGB Chairman, to full membership (having served as a candidate member since 1967). Alexander Shelepin had served as KGB Chairman, but
31257-441: The rest of the Outfit members through his bodyguard. Montefiore also described Stalin during this formative period as a " terrorist - gangster ". Stalin eventually earned a place in Lenin's inner circle and the highest echelons of the Bolshevik hierarchy. His pseudonym, Stalin, means "man of the steel hand". The October Revolution took place in the Russian capital of Petrograd on 7 November 1917 ( O.S. 25 October 1917), which saw
31464-421: The revolution; instead, he argued that the proletariat would have to build an alliance with the peasantry to overthrow the Tsarist regime and establish the "provisional revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry". The uprising has begun. Force against Force. Street fighting is raging, barricades are being thrown up, rifles are cracking, guns are booming. Rivers of blood are flowing,
31671-443: The right of self-determination ... Long live the revolution! — Lenin's political programme, October 1917 Upon taking power, Lenin's regime issued several decrees. The first was the Decree on Land , nationalizing the landed estates of the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church for redistribution to peasants by local governments. This contrasted with Lenin's preference for agricultural collectivisation but acknowledged
31878-415: The right to secede and form independent nation-states. Many declared independence ( Finland , Lithuania in December 1917, Latvia and Ukraine in January 1918, Estonia in February 1918, Transcaucasia in April 1918, and Poland in November 1918). The Bolsheviks then promoted communist parties in these new states, while at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of the Soviets in July 1918, a constitution reformed
32085-584: The rise of fascism in Western Europe. However, Trotsky's opposition and criticism of the ruling troika received support from several, Central Committee members of foreign communist parties. This included Christian Rakovsky , Chairman of the Ukraine Sovnarkom , Boris Souvarine of the French Communist Party and the Central Committee of the Polish Communist Party which was led by prominent theoreticians such as Maksymilian Horwitz , Maria Koszutska and Adolf Warski . According to political scientist Baruch Knei-Paz, Trotsky’s theory of “permanent revolution”
32292-404: The rise of a moderate Stalinist faction with the party. On 1 December 1934, Kirov was shot dead – whether he was the victim of a lone assailant or killed on Stalin's orders remains unknown. Not long after, on 21 January 1935, Valerian Kuybyshev died of natural causes, and a month later, Anastas Mikoyan and Vlas Chubar were elected Politburo full members. Andrei Zhdanov , the First Secretary of
32499-403: The same day that former NKVD chief, Yagoda, was also executed. Stalin eventually turned on Yezhov . He appointed Yezhov Commissar of Water Transport in April 1938 (a similar demotion had happened to Yezhov's predecessor, Yagoda, shortly before he was fired). Stalin began ordering the executions of Yezhov's protégés in the NKVD . Politburo members also started to openly condemn the excesses of
32706-518: The scenes. Stalin played a decisive role in engineering the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia . His successes in Georgia propelled him into the ranks of the Politburo in late 1921. At the 11th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1922, the leaders decided to expand the party's Central Committee . This decision led to the creation of the office of the General Secretary which Stalin assumed on 3 April. Stalin soon learned how to use his new office to gain advantages over key persons within
32913-417: The second half. It was not until the 28th Politburo that every republic had a representative at the Politburo. The Politburo never tried to fix the ethnic imbalance within the Politburo. Instead, the Soviet Union at the central level was mostly ruled by Russians. Despite the ideological rhetoric about equality between the sexes, the Politburo came to be composed largely of men. Only four women ever served in
33120-518: The seizures, but Bukharin and Premier Rykov were outraged. Bukharin criticized Stalin's plans for rapid industrialization financed by kulak wealth, and advocated a return to Lenin's NEP . Bukharin was unable to rally sufficient support from the higher levels of the Communist Party to oppose Stalin. By the latter months of 1928, a critical shortfall in grain supplies prompted Stalin to push for collectivisation of agriculture . Stalin began pushing for more rapid industrialisation and central control of
33327-409: The senior Red Army military officers Iona Yakir , Ieronim Uborevich , Robert Eideman , August Kork , Vitovt Putna , Boris Feldman and Vitaly Primakov (as well as Yakov Gamarnik , who committed suicide before the investigations began) were accused of anti-Soviet conspiracy and sentenced to death; they were executed on the night of 11 to 12 June 1937, immediately after the verdict delivered by
33534-404: The socialist movement, he encouraged the founding of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres. By late 1894, he was leading a Marxist workers' circle, and meticulously covered his tracks to evade police spies. He began a romantic relationship with Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya , a Marxist school teacher. He also authored a political tract criticising the Narodnik agrarian-socialists, What
33741-428: The state administration. From the 20th Congress until the 28th Congress , the share of Politburo members serving in the central party apparatus increased, while those serving in the state administration declined. The majority of Politburo members had leading central posts; the highest share of republican officials serving in the Politburo came at the 22nd Congress (held in 1961) when 50 percent of members held offices at
33948-431: The status of hereditary nobleman . Both of Lenin's parents were monarchists and liberal conservatives , being committed to the emancipation reform of 1861 introduced by the reformist Tsar Alexander II ; they avoided political radicals and there is no evidence that the police ever put them under surveillance for subversive thought. Every summer they holidayed at a rural manor in Kokushkino . Among his siblings, Lenin
34155-401: The summer of 1930, Stalin exposed Kalinin's embezzlement of state funds, which he spent on a mistress. Kalinin begged forgiveness and effectively submitted himself to Stalin. In September 1930, Stalin proposed dismissing Premier Rykov , who was Bukharin's fellow oppositionist. The other Politburo members agreed with Stalin, and supported his nomination of Vyacheslav Molotov . On December 19,
34362-402: The system of centralised decision-making, Stalin appointed his allies to high offices outside the Politburo. For instance, Vyacheslav Molotov succeeded Rykov as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars in 1930, to reduce the chance of another independent locus of centralised power forming form which could threaten Stalin and the Politburo, Secretariat, and Orgburo. During this period,
34569-572: The thieves in order to identify the interests of all thieves with the interests of the nation or the fatherland is an unconscionable bourgeois lie. — Lenin on his interpretation of the First World War Lenin was in Galicia when the First World War broke out. The war pitted the Russian Empire against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and due to his Russian citizenship, Lenin was arrested and briefly imprisoned until his anti-Tsarist credentials were explained. Lenin and his wife returned to Bern, before relocating to Zürich in February 1916. Lenin
34776-414: The time, Lenin's elder brother Alexander, whom he affectionately knew as Sasha, was studying at Saint Petersburg University . Involved in political agitation against the absolute monarchy of the reactionary Tsar Alexander III , Alexander studied the writings of banned leftists and organised anti-government protests. He joined a revolutionary cell bent on assassinating the Tsar and was selected to construct
34983-402: The trade unionist " right wing ". Leon Trotsky led a group of his own supporters. In this environment, Stalin painted himself as a moderate labeling his faction "the centre" while quietly building alliances with both sides in the mid-1920s. Stalin then pivoted to focus on Trotsky. Stalin forged an alliance with fellow Old Bolsheviks to oppose Trotsky in the party apparatus. Defeating Trotsky
35190-412: The trade unions". Fearing a backlash from the trade unions, Lenin asked Stalin to build a support base in the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (Rabkrin) against bureaucratism. Lenin's faction eventually prevailed at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921. Frustrated by the squabbling factions within the Communist Party during what he saw as a time of crisis, Lenin convinced the Tenth Congress to pass
35397-417: The train was not truly sealed, and the passengers were allowed to disembark to, for example, spend the night in Frankfurt. The group travelled by train from Zürich to Sassnitz , proceeding by ferry to Trelleborg , Sweden, and from there to the Haparanda – Tornio border crossing and then to Helsinki before taking the final train to Petrograd. Arriving at Petrograd's Finland Station in April, Lenin gave
35604-512: The transfer of all political power to the Soviets. In the Russian Civil War that followed, Stalin forged connections with various Red Army generals and eventually acquired military powers of his own. He brutally suppressed counter-revolutionaries and bandits. After winning the Civil War, the Bolsheviks moved to expand the Revolution into Europe, starting with Poland , which was fighting the Red Army in Ukraine . As joint commander of an army in Ukraine and later in Poland itself, Stalin's actions in
35811-469: The transfer without compensation of all land—landlord, imperial, and monastery—to the peasants' committees; it will defend the soldiers' rights, introducing a complete democratisation of the army; it will establish workers' control over industry; it will ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the date set; it will supply the cities with bread and the villages with articles of first necessity; and it will secure to all nationalities inhabiting Russia
36018-418: The triumvirate remained intact throughout 1924 and the early months of 1925, Zinoviev and Kamenev did not regard Stalin highly as a revolutionary theorist, and often disparaged him in private even as they had aided him publicly against Trotsky and the Left Opposition . For his part, Stalin was cautious about where the political situation was heading and often felt that Zinoviev's volatile rhetoric against Trotsky
36225-562: The view of the agrarian-socialist Narodnik movement, which held that the peasantry could establish socialism in Russia by forming peasant communes, thereby bypassing capitalism. This Narodnik view developed in the 1860s with the People's Freedom Party and was then dominant within the Russian revolutionary movement. Lenin rejected the premise of the agrarian-socialist argument but was influenced by agrarian-socialists like Pyotr Tkachev and Sergei Nechaev and befriended several Narodniks. In May 1890, Maria, who retained societal influence as
36432-470: The vote, losing to the agrarian-focused Socialist-Revolutionaries. Lenin argued that the election did not reflect the people's will, claiming the electorate was unaware of the Bolsheviks' programme, and that candidacy lists were outdated, having been drawn up before the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries split from the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the newly elected Russian Constituent Assembly convened in Petrograd in January 1918. Sovnarkom claimed it
36639-471: The war were later criticized by many, including Leon Trotsky . In late 1920, with the crises in society following the Russian Civil War , Trotsky argued for the trade unions to be incorporated more and more into the workers' state, and for the workers' state to completely control the industrial sectors. Lenin's position was one where the trade unions were subordinate to the workers' state, but separate, with Lenin accusing Trotsky of "bureaucratically nagging
36846-448: The whole party, and so were used as a machine by Stalin and his allies to promote like-minded individuals. Molotov and Kaganovich played a key role in strengthening the role of the Secretariat and the Orgburo in Party affairs. The 17th Politburo was elected at the 1st Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee , in the aftermath of the 17th Congress . Outwardly, the Politburo remained united, but on 4 February Grigory Ordzhonikidze ,
37053-451: The widespread peasant land seizures that had already taken place. In November 1917, the government issued the Decree on the Press, closing opposition media outlets deemed counter-revolutionary. Although claimed to be temporary, the decree faced criticism, including from Bolsheviks, for undermining freedom of the press . In November 1917, Lenin issued the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia , granting non-Russian ethnic groups
37260-645: The widow of a nobleman, persuaded the authorities to allow Lenin to take his exams externally at the University of St Petersburg, where he obtained the equivalent of a first-class degree with honours. The graduation celebrations were marred when his sister Olga died of typhoid . Lenin remained in Samara for several years, working first as a legal assistant for a regional court and then for a local lawyer. He devoted much time to radical politics, remaining active in Sklyarenko's group and formulating ideas about how Marxism applied to Russia. Inspired by Plekhanov's work, Lenin collected data on Russian society, using it to support
37467-407: The working style of the Politburo's weekly meeting during the Brezhnev era as "quiet, orderly, and methodical. Although an agenda is prepared, there is no quorum call or other form of parliamentary procedure ." Shevchenko's memoir makes it clear that the tense political struggle that could often occur among Politburo members usually did not take place openly during its meetings, but rather behind
37674-405: The working-classes in revolution. Furthermore, Bogdanov, influenced by Ernst Mach , believed that all concepts of the world were relative, whereas Lenin stuck to the orthodox Marxist view that there was an objective reality independent of human observation. Bogdanov and Lenin holidayed together at Maxim Gorky 's villa in Capri in April 1908; on returning to Paris, Lenin encouraged a split within
37881-529: The works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , Ludwig Feuerbach , and Aristotle , all of whom had been key influences on Marx. This changed Lenin's interpretation of Marxism; whereas he once believed that policies could be developed based on predetermined scientific principles, he concluded that the only test of whether a policy was correct was its practice. He still perceived himself as an orthodox Marxist, but he began to diverge from some of Marx's predictions about societal development; whereas Marx had believed that
38088-400: The writing of this letter has been disputed. Historian Stephen Kotkin assesses that Krupskaya, working in tandem with Trotsky, may have written it in an effort to discredit Stalin and remove him from his role in the government. However, most historians consider the document to be an accurate reflection of Lenin's views. Various historians have also cited Lenin's proposal to appoint Trotsky as
38295-401: Was a contrast to Trotsky's " Permanent Revolution ". Trotsky's downfall was swift, he was first removed as Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs (January 1925), then removed from the Politburo (October 1926), and lost his seat on the Central Committee in October 1927. Stalin expelled him from the party in November 1927, and sent him to Alma–Ata in Kazakhstan in 1928. Trotsky was expelled from
38502-399: Was angry that the German Social Democratic Party was supporting the German war effort, which was a direct contravention of the Second International's Stuttgart resolution that socialist parties would oppose the conflict and saw the Second International as defunct. He attended the Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915 and the Kienthal Conference in April 1916, urging socialists across
38709-425: Was assassinated in Mexico on Stalin's orders in August 1940. After the United Opposition was prohibited in December 1927, the Kulaks and NEPmen were emboldened and exerted much greater economic pressure on the Soviet government in the months afterwards. In January 1928, Stalin personally travelled to Siberia where he oversaw the seizure of grain stockpiles from kulak farmers. Many in the Communist Party supported
38916-517: Was closest to his sister Olga , whom he often bossed around; he had an extremely competitive nature and could be destructive, but usually admitted his misbehaviour. A keen sportsman, he spent much of his free time outdoors or playing chess, and excelled at school, the disciplinarian and conservative Simbirsk Classical Gymnasium. In January 1886, when Lenin was 15, his father died of a brain haemorrhage. Subsequently, his behaviour became erratic and confrontational, and he renounced his belief in God. At
39123-408: Was counter-revolutionary because it sought to remove power from the soviets, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks denied this. The Bolsheviks presented a motion to strip the Assembly of most of its legal powers; when the Assembly rejected this, Sovnarkom declared it counter-revolutionary and forcibly disbanded it. Lenin rejected repeated calls, including from some Bolsheviks, to establish
39330-432: Was difficult as he had a prominent role in the October Revolution . Trotsky developed the Red Army and played an indispensable role during the Russian Civil War. Stalin feuded with Trotsky quietly, to appear as "The Golden Centre Man". Prior to the Revolution, Trotsky frequently snubbed Stalin, mocked his lack of education, and questioned his effectiveness as a revolutionary. Stalin's theory of " Socialism in One Country "
39537-412: Was elected to the Politburo through his work in the Komsomol , while Eduard Shevardnadze , who had served as the Georgian Minister of Internal Affairs until 1972, became a candidate member of the Politburo through his work as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party . Similarly in 1973, the Minister of Defense Andrei Grechko was appointed to the Politburo. However, unlike the security sector,
39744-543: Was established and he remained undisputed leader of the USSR until his death. Before his 1913-1917 exile in Siberia, Stalin was one of the Bolshevik operatives in the Caucasus, organizing cells, spreading propaganda, and raising money through criminal activities. Stalin also formed the Outfit, a criminal gang that were involved with armed robberies , racketeering , assassinations , arms procurement and child couriering . According to Montefiore, Stalin socialised with hitmen “ Kamo and Tsintsadze " but issued formal commands to
39951-480: Was filled with Old Bolsheviks and ethnicities he distrusted, such as Poles , Jews and Latvians . In September 1936, Stalin fired the head of the NKVD , Genrikh Yagoda , and replaced him with the more aggressive and zealous Yezhov , with Yezhov overseeing the most brutally oppressive period of Stalin's Great Purge from late 1936 to late 1938. In June 1937, The Case of the Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization took place. Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and
40158-497: Was going too far, especially when Zinoviev demanded Trotsky's expulsion from the Communist Party in January 1925. Stalin opposed Zinoviev's demand and skillfully played the role of a moderate. At this time, Stalin was allying himself more and more with Nikolai Bukharin and the Right Opposition , whom Stalin had promoted to the Politburo at the Thirteenth Party Congress. Stalin proposed the theory of Socialism in One Country in October 1924, which Bukharin soon elaborated upon to give it
40365-441: Was granted a few days in Saint Petersburg to put his affairs in order and used this time to meet with the Social-Democrats, who had renamed themselves the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class . His journey to eastern Siberia took 11 weeks, for much of which he was accompanied by his mother and sisters. Deemed only a minor threat to the government, he was exiled to Shushenskoye , Minusinsky District , where he
40572-545: Was grossly misrepresented by Stalin as defeatist and adventurist during the succession struggle when in fact Trotsky encouraged revolutions in Europe but was not at any time proposing “reckless confrontations” with the capitalist world. With Trotsky mostly sidelined with a persistent illness during 1925, Zinoviev and Kamenev then formed the New Opposition against Stalin. At the Fourteenth Party Congress in December 1925, Stalin openly attacked Kamenev and Zinoviev, revealing that they had asked for his aid in expelling Trotsky from
40779-489: Was insincere, as in private Bukharin continued to criticize Stalin and seek out other opponents of Stalin (the NKVD wiretapped Bukharin's telephone). Shortly before their executions in August 1936, Kamenev and Zinoviev had denounced Bukharin as a traitor during their trial. At the December 1936 plenum of the Central Committee, Yezhov accused Bukharin and Alexei Rykov of treachery. Bukharin and Rykov confessed to conspiring against Stalin and were executed on 15 March 1938, on
40986-476: Was kept under police surveillance; he was nevertheless able to correspond with other revolutionaries, many of whom visited him, and permitted to go on trips to swim in the Yenisei River and to hunt duck and snipe . In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been arrested in August 1896 for organising a strike. She was initially posted to Ufa , but persuaded the authorities to move her to Shushenskoye, where she and Lenin married on 10 July 1898. Settling into
41193-455: Was murdered by Leonid Nikolaev . The death of this popular, high-profile politician shocked Russia, and Stalin used this murder to begin The Great Terror . Within hours of Kirov's death, Stalin declared Grigory Zinoviev and his supporters to be responsible for Kirov's murder. Lev Kamenev and Zinoviev were arrested and, to escape long prison sentences, confessed to political and moral responsibility for Kirov's murder. In January 1935, Zinoviev
41400-533: Was on the verge of proletarian revolution. The party began plans to organise the offensive, holding a final meeting at the Smolny Institute on 24 October. This was the base of the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), an armed militia largely loyal to the Bolsheviks that had been established by the Petrograd Soviet during Kornilov's alleged coup. In October, the MRC was ordered to take control of Petrograd's key transport, communication, printing and utilities hubs, and did so without bloodshed. Bolsheviks besieged
41607-419: Was on vacation, Mikhail Suslov , who hated the idea that in front of the Lenin Mausoleum in Red Square there was a department store (GUM), attempted to turn GUM into an exhibition hall and museum showcasing Soviet and Communist history. After the decision was drawn up, Brezhnev was immediately reported. When he returned from vacation, before the first meeting of the Politburo he said: "Some idiot here invented
41814-400: Was raped in front of him, Postyshev and Eikhe. Petrovsky in contrast, was rather lucky, instead of being purged he was not reelected to the Politburo at the 18th Congress . The purging of Rudzutaks, Eikhe, and Kosior testified to Stalin's growing power; the Politburo were not even notified of the decision. Postyshev was purged because "of too much zeal in persecuting people." The Politburo was
42021-425: Was rebuked to maintain the image of party unity. With his position secure, Stalin focused on consolidating his power and leveraging antagonisms among party leaders. Many were members of the Politburo, and rivalries extended beyond that. Several People's Commissars were involved in the Party's internal personal as well as political struggles. The main factions within the party included the intellectual " left wing ", and
42228-420: Was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, and Kamenev was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment. Stalin sanctioned the formation of troikas for the purpose of extrajudicial punishment. In April 1935, Kamenev's prison sentence was increased by another 5 years, to a total of 10 years imprisonment. Hundreds of oppositionists linked to Kamenev and Zinoviev were arrested and exiled to Siberia. In late 1935, Stalin reopened
42435-447: Was the third of eight children, having two older siblings, Anna (born 1864) and Alexander (born 1866). They were followed by three more children, Olga (born 1871), Dmitry (born 1874), and Maria (born 1878). Two later siblings died in infancy. His father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov , was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although his mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (née Blank),
42642-434: Was unable to take such a leading role on the Iskra editorial board; in his absence, the board moved its base of operations to Geneva . The second RSDLP Congress was held in London in July 1903. At the conference, a schism emerged between Lenin's supporters and those of Julius Martov . Martov argued that party members should be able to express themselves independently of the party leadership; Lenin disagreed, emphasising
42849-489: Was with Lenin at the time, shielded him and was injured by a bullet. Concerned by Petrograd's vulnerability to German attack, Sovnarkom began relocating to Moscow in March 1918. Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders moved into the Kremlin . He survived another assassination attempt in August 1918. To All Workers, Soldiers and Peasants. The Soviet authority will at once propose a democratic peace to all nations and an immediate armistice on all fronts. It will safeguard
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