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.

Communist parties had already come to power in Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Yugoslavia.

Stalin had respected his agreement with Winston Churchill to not intervene, but Yugoslavia and Albania defied the USSR's advice and sent supplies during the Greek Civil War to the partisan forces of the Communist Party of Greece, the ELAS ( National Popular Liberation Army ).

Enver Hoxha (; 16 October 190811 April 1985 ) was the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania.

On 8 November 1941, the Communist Party of Albania ( later renamed the Albanian Party of Labour in 1948 ) was founded.

From 8 April to 11 April 1942, the First Consultative Meeting of Activists of the Communist Party of Albania was held in Tirana.

In July 1942, a " Call to the Albanian Peasantry " was written by Enver Hoxha and issued in the name of the Communist Party of Albania.

In August 1943, a secret meeting was held in the town of Mukje between the anti-communist Balli Kombëtar ( National Front ) and the Communist Party of Albania.

However, the Communist Party of Albania will not collaborate with any group of the National Front that continues to maintain contacts with the fascist invaders.

The roots of the change began on 20 October 1944 at the Second Plenary Session of the Communist Party of Albania.

Before World War II, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had supported transferring Kosovo to Albania, but Yugoslavia's postwar communist regime insisted on preserving the country's prewar borders.

Albanian-Chinese relations had stagnated by 1970, and when the Asian giant began to reemerge from isolation in the early 1970s, Mao and the other Communist Chinese leaders reassessed their commitment to tiny Albania.

In 1992 the Democratic Party of Albania took control of the country through parliamentary elections, deposing the Communist Party of Albania, and Sali Berisha held the premiership of the country.

* 1946 – Enver Hoxha, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Albania, declares the People's Republic of Albania with himself as head of state.

Colonel David Smiley, an aristocratic Guards officer who had helped Enver Hoxha and his Communist guerillas to liberate Albania, now prepared to liberate it from Hoxha.

Following the Sino – Albanian split, a small portion of Marxist – Leninists began to downplay or repudiate the role of Mao Zedong in the International Communist Movement in favor of the Party of Labor of Albania and a stricter adherence to Stalin.

Religious freedom did not exist at all in many Communist countries such as Albania and the Stalinist Soviet Union, where the state prevented the public expression of religious belief and even persecuted some or all religions.

In the event the populaces of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania, East Germany, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria deposed their Communist governments in the period from 1989 – 91.

Historically, in countries where Communist Parties were struggling to attain state power, the formation of wartime alliances with non-communist parties and wartime groups was enacted ( such as the National Liberation Front of Albania ).

Transport in Albania had been rather undeveloped during the Communist period ( between 1945 and 1990 ), after which the country has had to make significant investment into transport infrastructure.

In Albania, Communist leader and Chinese ally Enver Hoxha began a " Cultural and Social Revolution " organized along the same lines as the Cultural Revolution.

* Albania became a near-autarky in 1976, when Communist Party leader Enver Hoxha instituted a policy of what he termed " self-reliance ".