Dubček replaced Novotný as the leader of Czechoslovakia on 5 January 1968 and quickly began to introduce a series of political and economic reforms known as ‘socialism with a human face’.
Kim Il-sung was already the country’s Prime Minister and the First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, and four years after his death in 1994 he was made Eternal President of the Republic.
The Soviet dekulakisation campaign began when Joseph Stalin announced the ‘liquidation of the kulaks as a class’.
Following his overthrow, Ceausescu and his wife were subjected to a show trial on Christmas Day and found guilty of crimes including genocide and illegally gathering wealth before being executed.
Established following a decree by Lenin on 19 December, the Cheka’s focus was on defending the revolution by removing internal threats to the communist regime.
United States Senator Joseph McCarthy was censured for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonour and disrepute.”
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party split into the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions.
The establishment of the GDR ensured that the division of Germany that had been implemented in 1945 was made permanent.
Although the targets were constantly revised to the point where they could never be achieved, the first five-year plan firmly set the USSR on the road to becoming a world superpower.
Hungary had been inundated with East Germans since the government began removing the border fence in May.
28th June 2015
11th November 2020
11th November 2020
1st September 2018
