1926

• Zinoviev replaced by Kirov as Leningrad party boss

  Early 1926
• United Opposition


  Formed with Trotsky in the Central Committee, aiming to challenge the Stalin-Bukharin leadership
• Criticisms of Stalin-Bukharin leadership by United Opposition

  • NEP
  • Lack of inner-party debate
  • Inadequate taxation of peasants and low wages of workers
  • Lack of movement towards collective farming
  • Socialism in one country
• The United Opposition was again outvoted in the Central Committee, leading to Zinoviev's demotion from the Politburo
• The United Opposition was denounced as deviationists, disloyal, and breaking the rules of democratic centralism
• Trotsky invoked Lenin's Testament

  Bukharin had Lenin's sister defuse its contents by asserting that Lenin held Stalin in high regard, a claim she later regretted
• The full text of Lenin's Testament was published in The New York Times by Max Eastman, a supporter of Trotsky


  October
• Trotsky was accused by the Central Committee and dropped from the Politburo after a heated debate in which Trotsky accused Stalin of being the "gravedigger of the revolution"
• The United Opposition faced heckling wherever they went to rally support
• Stalin and Bukharin began to adopt more popular elements of the United Opposition's policies, such as higher pay for workers, taxation of NEPmen and peasants, and encouraging collective farming