amounted to a declaration of war on the peasantry. The decade ended with Zinoviev and Kamenev broken, Bukharin discredited, Trotsky in disgrace and exile abroad, and Stalin alone at the helm about to launch his great adventure in social engineering. Still no one imagined the full terrible consequences of what was to follow, least of all the common people and the party masses who saw in him their natural leader and champion. With one rousing voice they joined the Central Committee in celebrating the occasion of Stalin's fiftieth birthday on December 21st 1929, just as his revolution from above was descending upon their heads.