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The15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held during 2–19 December 1927 inMoscow. 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 theUnited Opposition and other opponents ofJoseph Stalin were expelled from the party.[2]
In October 1927, the lastLeft Opposition and United Opposition members were expelled from theCentral Committee elected by the 14th Congress, and in November 1927Leon Trotsky andGrigory Zinoviev had been expelled from the Party itself.Lev Kamenev acted as the United Opposition's main spokesman at the 15th Congress due to Trotsky's and Zinoviev's expulsion.
The 15th Congress of theAll-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was convened inMoscow 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]
OppositionistsChristian Rakovsky andLev Kamenev held brief speeches in front of the Congress.[4] Rakovsky's speech[5] was interrupted fifty-seven times by his opponents, includingNikolai Bukharin,Martemyan Ryutin, andLazar 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]
The Central Committee adopted a set of theses regarding industrialization which had been prepared in October 1927 by the Central Committee.[6]
The Party stated:[7]
In view of a possible military attack by capitalist states against the proletarian state, the Five-Year Plan should devote maximum attention to the fastest possible development of those sectors of the economy ... which play the main role in securing the country's defense and in providing economic stability in wartime.
Thereafter, Soviet planners increasingly emphasized defense-related industry.[7]
The 15th Congress elected a newCentral Committee to govern activities of the Communist Party during the period in between Congresses.
Central Committee: 71 members, 50 candidates to Central Committee membershipCentral Revision Commission: 9 membersCentral Control Commission: 195 members