Everywhere the same question: Who will rule Russia? If a triumvirate, can it long endure or does the Soviet structure demand a single head? Will there be orderly elimination or violence?

Having disposed of the so-called Left opposition, Stalin had no trouble dealing with the Right opposition, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky, and was then supreme in the Politburo, the real governing body.

Trump’s Oval Office Spectacle: When Power Becomes a Stage for Humiliation.

Stalin mugged the cameras ... Now one of his problems is the ingrained aloofness of Politburo men and others in the Soviet hierarchy who feel that Russia is having too much truck with foreigners.

Communist leaders since Stalin and Mao have fretted over how ... and shouldn’t be constrained by formalism and bureaucratism,” the Politburo said in July. Party members should be encouraged ...

On June 23, 1942, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet—in reality, Stalin's Politburo—commuted Vavilov's death sentence to 20 years of imprisonment in labor camps. But no medical help was given ...

In July-October 1926, Kamenev and Trotsky were expelled from the Politburo, and in November ... and Kamenev subsequently capitulated to Stalin and rejoined the Communist Party, Trotsky was exiled ...