15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
The 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held during 2–19 December 1927 in Moscow. It was attended by 898 delegates with a casting vote and 771 with a consultative vote.[1] The congress ended an inner-party struggle, as Leon Trotsky, Gregorii Zinoviev and other opponents of Joseph Stalin were expelled from the party.[2]
The 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was convened in Moscow on 2 December 1927. This marked the first Soviet Communist Party Congress in two years, this despite the fact that party regulations called for annual meetings.[3] The gathering was retrospectively remembered as the "Congress of the Collectivization of Agriculture and of the Socialist Offensive on All Fronts" in the official party history of 1962, although a major part of time spent by the gathering related to internal party politics and the final ritualistic repudiation of the United Opposition of Trotsky, Zinoviev, and their supporters, effectively ending a two-year factional war.[3]
Oppositionists Christian Rakovsky and Lev Kamenev held brief speeches in front of the Congress.[4] Rakovsky's speech[5] was interrupted fifty-seven times by his opponents, including Nikolai Bukharin, Martemyan Ryutin, and Lazar Kaganovich.[4] Although, unlike Rakovsky, Kamenev used the occasion to appeal for reconciliation, he was nevertheless interrupted twenty-four times by the same group.[4]
Theses on Industrialization
The Central Committee adopted a set of theses regarding industrialization which had been prepared in October 1927 by the Central Committee.[6]
The 15th Congress elected a new Central Committee to govern activities of the Communist Party during the period in between Congresses.
Central Committee: 71 members, 50 candidates to Central Committee membership
Central Revision Commission: 9 members
Central Control Commission: 195 members