The 18th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held during 10-21 March 1939 in Moscow.
This is the first Congress to be dominated by the "purified" leadership of the Soviet Union after the Great Purge. This would be the last one held for over a decade.
In the report on the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Stalin outlined important aspects of the foreign policy of the USSR, particularly its disappointment with the western democracies and their failure to adopt the policy of collective security advocated by Soviet foreign minister Maxim Litvinov. Shortly after this, Stalin dismissed Litvinov and appointed Vyacheslav Molotov, a move that led to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and a temporary understanding with Nazi Germany.
Famous quotes containing the words congress, communist and/or party:
“What Congress and the popular sentiment approve is rarely defeated by reason of constitutional objections. I trust the measure will turn out well. It is a great relief to me. Defeat in this way, after a full and public hearing before this [Electoral] Commission, is not mortifying in any degree, and success will be in all respects more satisfactory.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
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“Growing older, I have lost the need to be political, which means, in this country, the need to be left. I am driven into grudging toleration of the Conservative Party because it is the party of non-politics, of resistance to politics.”
—Kingsley Amis (1922–1995)