Many Communist Party congresses have come at historic junctures and indicated the road the Soviet Union would follow. Here is a look at some that preceded the 28th, which begins Monday: 1st, 1898 _ Emigre Russian Marxists met in Minsk, capital of Byelorussia, and formed the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, forerunner of the Communist Party. 2nd, 1903 _ In Brussels, Belgium, Vladimir I. Lenin pushed through his party program and charter and asserted tight personal control over party affairs. The party split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. 7th, 1918 _ The Bolsheviks, now in power, met in Petrograd, formerly St. Petersburg and later to be named Leningrad. 10th, 1921 _ At the first party congress in Moscow, site of all future congresses, factions were banned and freedom of opinion limited. It marked the beginning of the New Economic Policy, which allowed some private enterprise. 11th, 1922 _ Josef Stalin became head of the party. 12th, 1923 _ With Lenin seriously ill, Stalin stepped up his campaign against Leon Trotsky and other rivals. 14th, 1925 _ Stalin, now in charge, began his crash industrialization program. 15th, 1927 _ This congress set the stage for the sweeping collectivization of agriculture Stalin ordered two years later. Millions of people died from famine. 17th, 1934 _ The ``Congress of Victors'' showed signs of moderation from Stalin's radical course, but was followed by purges in which millions of people were killed. 20th, 1956 _ Nikita S. Khrushchev, in a secret speech, exposed many of the evils of Stalin's reign and began ``destalinization.'' 25th, 1976 _ The congress was considered the height of what now is called Leonid I. Brezhnev's ``stagnation period.'' 27th, 1986 _ Mikhail S. Gorbachev laid out his program for ``perestroika,'' to democratize the political system and introduce modest economic reform.
