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Ryutin Platform (1932)
A document written in 1932 by Martemyan Ryutin, a Communist Party official and former Moscow party secretary, which called openly for Stalin's removal from power. The 200-page "Stalin and the Crisis of the Proletarian Dictatorship" condemned Stalin's leadership as catastrophic, described his agricultural collectivization as a criminal disaster, and called him "the great agent of provocation." Ryutin circulated the document to other party members. Stalin demanded Ryutin be shot. The Politburo, led by Kirov and others, refused. Ryutin was expelled from the party and imprisoned. The episode revealed that some senior Bolsheviks still resisted Stalin's authority in 1932, and that Kirov's more moderate position was known. Ryutin was eventually executed in 1937.