The Twenty-second Soviet Communist Party Congress opens in Moscow today in a situation contrasting sharply with the script prepared many months ago when this meeting was first announced.

The most surprising thing about the Twenty-second Congress of the Soviet Communist Party is that it is surprising -- perhaps quite as much, in its own way, as the Twentieth Congress of 1956, which ended with that famous `` secret '' report on Stalin.

* 1982 – Estonian Communist Party bureau declares " fight against bourgeois TV "— meaning Finnish TV — a top priority of the propagandists of Estonian SSR

* 1927 – April 12 Incident: Chiang Kai-shek orders the Communist Party of China members executed in Shanghai, ending the First United Front.

Ter-Petrosyan had been elected head of government in 1990, when the National Democratic Union party defeated the Armenian Communist Party.

A new party, the Republic Party, is headed by ex-Prime Minister Aram Sargsyan, brother of Vazgen Sargsyan, and has become the primary voice of the opposition, which also includes the Armenian Communist Party, the National Unity party of Artashes Geghamyan, and elements of the former Ter-Petrosyan government.

* 1927 – The Nanchang Uprising marks the first significant battle in the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and Communist Party of China.

* 1937 – Josip Broz Tito reads the resolution " Manifesto of constitutional congress of KPH " to the constitutive congress of KPH ( Croatian Communist Party ) in woods near Samobor.

* 1920 – The congress of the Communist Party of Bukhara opens.

* 1950 – Julien Lahaut, the chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium is assassinated by far-right elements.

* 1945 – Ten days after World War II ends with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Communist Party of China kill Baptist missionary John Birch, regarded by some of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War.

* 1912 – Pravda, the " voice " of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg.

* 1991 – Collapse of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

* 1991 – Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union suspends all activities of the Soviet Communist Party.

During the Cold War, the ACLU headquarters was dominated by anti-communists, but many local affiliates defended members of the Communist Party.

* 1969 – Czechoslovakian Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubček is deposed.

* 2011 – Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee after 45 years of holding the title.

* 1922 – Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

* 1941 – World War II: The Communist Party of Slovenia, the Slovene Christian Socialists, the left-wing Slovene Sokols ( also known as " National Democrats ") and a group of progressive intellectuals establish the Liberation Front of the Slovenian People.

No consistent investigation has been put forth against the violent protesters, mainly due to the difficulties encountered in identification of the many masked protesters and the fierce opposition at Congress held by most of the left-wing parties, such as the Communist Party and current PM Romano Prodi's Union coalition.

The African National Congress ( ANC ) is South Africa's governing political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions ( COSATU ) and the South African Communist Party ( SACP ), since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994.

In 1955, the Congress of the People officially adopted the Freedom Charter, stating the core principles of the South African Congress Alliance, which consisted of the African National Congress and its allies the South African Communist Party ( SACP ), the South African Indian Congress, the South African Congress of Democrats ( COD ) and the Coloured People's Congress.

In cooperation with the South African Communist Party, MK was founded in 1961.

The ANC holds a historic alliance with the South African Communist Party ( SACP ) and Congress of South African Trade Unions ( COSATU ), known as the Tripartite Alliance.

Gen. Maxwell Taylor's statement in Saigon that he is `` very much encouraged '' about the chances of the pro-Western government of Viet Nam turning back Communist guerrilla attacks comes close to an announcement that he will not recommend dispatching United States troops to bolster the Vietnamese Army.

The truth is that Communist Russia fears the resurgence of German militarism.

The weekly loss is partly counterbalanced by 500 arrivals each week from West Germany, but the hard truth, says Crossman, is that `` The closing off of East Berlin without interference from the West and with the use only of East German, as distinct from Russian, troops was a major Communist victory, which dealt West Berlin a deadly, possibly a fatal, blow.

In the very week of our war against Katanga, we make a $133 million grant to Kwame Nkrumah, who has just declared his solidarity with the Communist bloc, and is busily turning his own country into a totalitarian dictatorship.

This is the question now facing President Kennedy: How to put a stop to the Soviet buildup in Cuba and to Communist infiltration of this hemisphere??

Moreover, it is likely that Federal policies aimed at stimulating a faster rate of economic growth of the country, to keep ahead of the Communist countries and to demonstrate that our free economic system is better than theirs, will lead to rising Federal spending in certain areas such as education, housing, medical aid, and the like.

Communist target areas can be assumed, but there is no certainty that such assumptions coincide with Soviet intentions.

my point is that where conflicts arise they must always be resolved in favor of achieving the indispensable condition for a tolerant world -- the absence of Soviet Communist power.

Communist political warfare, we must remember, is waged insidiously and in deliberate stages.

Thus, typically, the first stage of a Communist takeover is to `` neutralize '' a country.

Today Northern Vietnam is overtly Communist ; ;

The United States, State Department officials explain, now is mainly interested in setting up an international inspection system which will prevent Laos from being used as a base for Communist attacks on neighboring Thailand and South Viet Nam.

And he wanted to be careful that the kids not only learn about Communist but also about what he feels is the only antidote -- a Biblically strong Christianity.

( However, there is little evidence that the late Lumumba was a Communist.

* 1951 – American journalist William N. Oatis is arrested for espionage by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia.

* 1953 – Operation Moolah is initiated by General Mark W. Clark against Communist pilots.

In his works he declared that " the principle ' what is not prohibited is allowed ' should be understood literally ", defying the unwritten ideological rules imposed by the Communist ruling elite on the society in spite of the seemingly democratic USSR Constitution.