The 15th Congress of the Russian 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.
In October 1927, the last Left Opposition members were expelled from the Communist Party Central Committee, and in November 1927 Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev were expelled from the Party itself.
Oppositionists Christian Rakovsky and Lev Kamenev held brief speeches in front of the Congress. Rakovsky's speech was interrupted fifty-seven times by his opponents—Nikolai Bukharin, Martemyan Ryutin, and Lazar Kaganovich. Although, unlike Rakovsky, Kamanev used the occasion to appeal for reconciliation, he was interrupted twenty-four times by the same group.
In this triumphant Congress, Stalin's power was consolidated, with the Trotskyists and all other leading oppositionists (like Rakovsky, Kamenev and Timofei Sapronov) expelled from the Party.
Famous quotes containing the words congress, communist and/or party:
“I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving.”
—Robert E. Lee (1807–1870)
“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.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“... the idea of a classless society is ... a disastrous mirage which cannot be maintained without tyranny of the few over the many. It is even more pernicious culturally than politically, not because the monolithic state forces the party line upon its intellectuals and artists, but because it has no social patterns to reflect.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)