The architect who designed the Palace of Soviets described the destruction of the cathedral in just these terms: "The proletarian revolution is boldly raising its hands against this cumbersome edifice which symbolized the power and the taste of the lords of old Moscow". However, the future of New Economic Policy (NEP) was increasingly precarious. Many party members were dissatisfied with the compromises it required, and in 1927 and 1928 rumors of war and the threat of food shortages imperiled the Soviet Union's fragile stability. For Joseph Stalin, industrialization was crucial to the survival of the Soviet state, which was surrounded by hostile capitalist powers. Stalin succeeded in ousting Trotsky from the Central Committee in 1927 and then exiling him from the Soviet Union in 1929. Stalin played an important role in directing his own cult and he personally approved or rejected many of his portraits.