Chronology: Key Events in Russia: From Autocracy to Communism 1924-41

1922 Stalin becomes General Secretary of Communist Party of USSR.

1924 Death of Lenin.

1925 Rivalry develops between Trotsky and Stalin (1).

1926 Trotsky expelled from Politburo (2).

1928 The Shakhty Trial of foreign engineers. Gosplan initiated; first Five Year Plan (3).

1929 Start of collectivisation and dekulakisation. Removal of Bukharin (4) and 'Right Opposition' supporters.

1930 Pravda carries Stalin's 'dizzy with success' critique of collectivisation (5).

1932 Ryutin Platform circulated among Central Committee members (6).

1932-34 Severe famine in Ukraine (7).

1934 17th Party Congress. Assassination of Kirov. Purges intensify.

1936 Trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev. New constitution adopted.

1937 Trial of Radek. Dismissal and execution of Marshall Tukachevsky.

1938 Trial of Bukharin and Yagoda. Beria replaces Yezhov as head of NKVD.

1939 18th Party Congress. Stalin declares end to mass purges.

1940 Yezhov shot.

1941 Invasion by Germany: start of Great Patriotic War.

1. Trotsky spoke of continuous revolution, spreading beyond the existing borders of the USSR; Stalin's view was to consolidate and develop socialism in the USSR first.
2. The Politburo was the central decision-making body in Communist Russia. Once it had affirmed a policy, there was no further discussion in the Party.
3. Gosplan, established in 1921, organised central economic planning. From 1928 it determined targets of the Five Year Plans.
4. Bukharin was replaced as the President of Comintern and Editor of Pravda, two highly prestigious positions in Soviet Russia. The Communist International was dedicated to help spread the Bolshevik message outside the USSR and became an important international voice by the late 1920s.
5. Stalin wrote this article claiming that there were traitors in the Party who would have to be purged. By 1934 more than a million members of the Party had been expelled.
6. The Ryutin Platform was a 194-page document that stated the Right's anti-Stalin views. Most historians see this publication as the critical event that started Stalin's reign of terror.
7. An estimated 5-7 million died as a result of collectivisation. Though most of the victims lived in the Ukraine, millions also died in the North Caucasus and along the Volga.