Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 - 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as top position in the Soviet state; after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924; Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands; gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin ( 9 October 1888 - 15 March 1938) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary; Soviet politician and prolific author on revolutionary theory.

When the Great Purge began in 1936; Stalin looked for any pretext to liquidate his former allies and rivals for power; and some of Bukharin's letters; conversations and tapped phone-calls indicated disloyalty. Arrested in February 1937; he was charged with conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state and executed in March 1938; after a trial that alienated many Western communist sympathisers. Pictures From History