XIX Congress of the CPSU (b) - (October 5-14, 1952). Documents and Materials

October 6, (Morning session)

Presiding N.S. Khrushchev.

At the meeting, the report of the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU (b) is heard. Then the congress goes on to discuss the reports of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU (b).

M.D. Bagirov, (Azerbaijan SSR )

Comrades! (...)

The draft directives of the party congress on the fifth five‐year plan for the development of the USSR and the amended Party Rules, developed on the basis of the works and instructions of Comrade Stalin, were greeted by the communists and all Soviet people with great enthusiasm, perceived them as a combat program of struggle for a further rise in the economy and culture of our Motherland.

Report of Comrade Malenkov on the activities of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) reflects the gigantic organizational and political work done by our party under the leadership of Comrade Stalin since the 18th Congress. In his historic report at the 18th Party Congress, Comrade Stalin substantiated the possibility of building communism in our country, revealed the prospects for the further development of the Soviet Union, gave the Party and the Soviet people a program of action for an entire historical era. The Communist Party, armed with the instructions of Comrade Stalin, led the country through the ordeals of the Great Patriotic War. During the war, the organizational talent, the inexhaustible strength and energy of our party, its indissoluble connection with the people, and selfless service to the socialist Fatherland were clearly manifested.

Under the leadership of the Communist Party, under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, the peoples of our country, led by the great Russian people, won a world‐historic victory in the Patriotic War, defended the freedom and independence of our Motherland, saved mankind from the threat of fascist enslavement, helped many peoples of Europe and Asia to throw off the yoke of capitalism and embark on the path of building a new, socialist life.

Guided by the speech of Comrade Stalin of February 9, 1946, the party ensured in a short time the elimination of the grave consequences of the war and achieved the successful fulfillment of the fourth five‐year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy of the USSR.

Our Party and the entire Soviet people owe all their successes and victories to the wise leadership of the brilliant architect of communism, our dear and beloved Comrade Stalin. (Stormy applause.)

Comrades! During the time after the XVIII Congress of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) ‐ both during the Great Patriotic War and in the post‐war period ‐ the Azerbaijani party organization under the leadership of the Central Committee of the party successfully coped with the tasks assigned to it. The level of industrial production for 1950 established by the fourth five‐year plan was achieved in the third quarter of 1949. Oil production in the five‐year period increased by 28 percent. Electricity generation in 1950 was 112 percent. to the task of the five‐year plan and exceeded the 1940 level by 59 percent. The assignments of the five‐year plan for other branches of industry were fulfilled and exceeded.

During this time, the enterprises of the oil refining, machine building, light, fish, food, meat and dairy, local industries and industrial cooperation of the republic have undergone a radical reconstruction and expanded.

Along with the oil industry, on the initiative of Comrade Stalin in Soviet Azerbaijan, on the basis of explored and revealed rich ore and raw materials, new branches of heavy industry are being created and developed: mining, ferrous and non‐ferrous metallurgy, chemical industry, etc.

The workers of the republicʹs socialist agriculture have achieved significant success in the implementation of the tasks of the five‐year plan: the area under cotton has increased, the yield of cotton has increased 2.8 times; the task of the five‐year plan for the growth of the social livestock has been exceeded.

The republic coped well with the tasks and in 1951 the plan for the production of gross industrial output was fulfilled by 102.3 percent. The enterprises of the Ministry of the Oil Industry, located on the territory of the republic, in 1951 fulfilled the plan for the production of gross output by 101.5%, including oil production by 100.1%. Despite unfavorable weather conditions, the republic fulfilled the main tasks for agriculture, with the exception of cotton. The sum of capital investments in the national economy of the republic in 1951 alone amounted to about the same as in the entire second five‐year plan, and in 1952 capital investments in the national economy of the Azerbaijan SSR amounted to almost the same as in the entire third five‐year plan. We owe all this to constant assistance, to the fatherly attention and care of Comrade Stalin for the Azerbaijani people.

On the initiative of Comrade Stalin, in recent years, the Union Government has adopted a number of resolutions aimed at further improving the economy and culture of Soviet Azerbaijan. These decrees provide for measures to strengthen the material and technical base of the republicʹs oil industry.

On the personal instructions of Comrade Stalin, a lot of work is being done to explore and develop the rich oil fields at the bottom of the Caspian Sea. Advanced Soviet technology made it possible in a short time to create on the open sea, tens of kilometers from the coast on artificial foundations and islands, oil fields and comfortable working settlements. Oil production at sea is growing from month to month.

Suffice it to say that even if the drilling plans were not fulfilled, the growth of oil production in 1951 against 1950 at offshore fields amounted to 34.1 percent, and in 9 months of this year against the corresponding period of last year by 25.2 percent.

As shown by the positive results of deep exploration drilling, the reserves for the growth of oil production on land, in addition to other regions of the republic, are horizons lying at great depths in Absheron. Using new, powerful domestic drilling equipment, Baku oilmen successfully cope with the drilling of superdeep wells of 3 ‐ 4 thousand meters.

Our unforgivable, still not liquidated, mistake is the backlog of geological exploration, as a result of which not all of the republicʹs rich sources of oil have been put at the service of the countryʹs national economy.

The draft directives of the Congress on the fifth five‐year plan reads: “Ensure high rates of development of the oil industry. Provide for the further development of oil production at offshore oil fields. ʺ This place great responsibility on the Azerbaijani party organization. And we will make every effort to ensure that the tasks of the new five‐year plan for our republic in the field of oil production are fulfilled and overfulfilled.

On the initiative and with the help of Comrade Stalin, grandiose work was launched in the republic to build the largest hydraulic structures. The completion of the construction of the Mingechaur hydroelectric complex and the continuation of the development of the lands of the Kura‐Araks lowland, provided for by the draft directives of the 19th Party Congress on the fifth five‐year plan, provide a sharp rise in the entire economy and a radical reconstruction of the republicʹs agriculture. The Mingachevir hydroelectric complex will not only provide cheap electricity to the national economy, but together with the Kura‐Araksin irrigation system, it will make it possible to develop hundreds of thousands of hectares of empty land for wheat, cotton and other industrial crops and create a sustainable fodder base for public animal husbandry. Related to this is the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on increasing the production of wheat and cotton in the collective and state farms of Azerbaijan, adopted in 1950 at the suggestion of Comrade Stalin.

The timeliness and relevance of this decision is evidenced by the first results achieved in the agriculture of the republic. Over the past two years, the sown area under wheat and cotton alone increased by 205 thousand hectares, including 175 thousand hectares under wheat. Both last year and this year, the grain procurement plan was significantly overfulfilled, and this year more than twice as much grain has been delivered to the state as in 1950. According to the plan, this year we must deliver more than one and a half times more cotton to the state than in 1950. The state of cotton today gives grounds to report that the state plan for the procurement of raw cotton this year will be exceeded. Exceeded the plan for tea. More than two times more green tea leaves were handed over to the state than in 1950. Other agricultural crops are also being successfully procured. The number of livestock has increased, the productivity of animal husbandry has risen. This should explain the successful course of procurement of livestock products in the current year. As of October 1, of this year, the plan for wool harvesting has been exceeded. Almost twice as much wool was handed over to the state as in 1950. Meat for 5.074 tons and milk for 5.962 tons more than last year on the same date. The annual plans for haymaking, silage and rough fodder preparation have been exceeded. As of October 1, 224 thousand hectares of hay were cut more than in the corresponding period last year; silos for 160 thousand tons were laid and roughage harvested by 985 thousand tons more than last year.

The fifth five‐year plan for the development of the USSR for 1951 ‐ 1955 poses new, even more responsible tasks for the countryʹs agriculture. The Azerbaijani party organization will do everything so that the tasks for our republic arising from the new five‐year plan are overfulfilled.

The party organization of Azerbaijan, implementing the decisions of the 18th Congress of the All‐Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, has done a great job to raise the material and cultural level of the working people of the republic, in the preparation and education of personnel. During this time, many residential buildings, schools, hospitals, palaces of culture, clubs and other cultural and educational institutions were built, new higher educational institutions were opened, and a republican Academy of Sciences was created. Numerous national cadres, boundlessly devoted to the cause of Lenin and Stalin, have grown and are successfully working in all sectors of economic and cultural development. Suffice it to say that if in 1939 there were 12,143 specialists with higher education in the republic, now there are 36,373 of them.

Comrades! Work experience shows that mastering the Russian language, the language of our elder brother, the great Russian people, the language of Lenin and Stalin, is of exceptional importance in raising culture, in training highly qualified personnel. It is the Russian language, this powerful means of interethnic communication, that makes it possible to achieve the culture of the fraternal peoples of the Soviet Union to become the property of all the nations inhabiting our great Motherland.

We have created pedagogical schools to train teachers of the Russian language. For the same purpose, eleventh grades have been organized in a number of secondary schools in Baku and other cities of the republic. Since the beginning of the current academic year, a pedagogical institute of the Russian language and literature has been opened on the basis of the teacherʹs institute to train teaching personnel for secondary schools in Soviet Azerbaijan.

Comrades, the ideological work of the Party, the communist education of the working people, as Comrade Stalin teaches, are of decisive importance in the building of communism. A huge role in the ideological life of our party and the Soviet people was played by the decisions of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on ideological issues and creative discussions on various branches of science carried out on the initiative of Comrade Stalin, under the leadership of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Comrade Stalinʹs works on linguistics and on the economic problems of socialism are the greatest contribution to the treasury of Marxism‐Leninism, they raise all our ideological work to a new, higher level, open up the broadest prospects for the development of Soviet science and culture.

The decisions and measures of the Central Committee of the All‐Union

Communist Party of Bolsheviks on ideological issues have rendered us invaluable assistance in our work on the communist education of the working people, in strengthening the Bolshevik intransigence towards all kinds of ideological perversions, in exposing the manifestations of bourgeois ideology.

The Azerbaijani party organization, guided by the decisions of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the instructions of Comrade Stalin, revealed serious shortcomings in certain areas of ideological work and took the necessary measures to eliminate them. The activity of research institutions has been improved, the ideological level of teaching social sciences in universities has been raised, the preparation and defense of dissertations, and the awarding of academic degrees and titles have been streamlined. The relapses of bourgeois nationalism in literature and art, attempts to distort the history of the Azerbaijani people, underestimate the progressive, beneficial significance of Azerbaijanʹs annexation to Russia have been exposed. These measures have a noticeable effect on the education and ideological training of our cadres.

The organization of regions within the Azerbaijan SSR is of great importance in improving the work with personnel, in the selection, placement and education of personnel. The staffing of the staff of the regional organizations and the related rearrangement of people gave us the opportunity to study the personnel more closely and identify a rich reserve of young, capable workers.

Comrades! Comrade Stalinʹs constant attention and concern for the Azerbaijani people, great material and technical assistance provided to us, the numerous capable personnel available in Soviet Azerbaijan could have been used with greater results, with greater effect, if not for the presence of serious shortcomings and mistakes in our work.

The most serious shortcoming is the poor selection, placement and education of personnel, the lack of systematic painstaking work to create a large, prepared in all respects, personnel reserve. We talk a lot about working with an asset, but we do very little for an organized, constant selection of the best, capable comrades from this asset in order to replenish the pool of personnel. The absence of a comprehensively studied reserve must also explain the facts of unsuccessful promotion and appointment of people to one or another post that often occur in our country. The lack of the necessary cadre reserve must also explain the fact that after the enlargement of our collective farms, many of them have not been reinforced by proven and capable workers. The root of this evil lies in the misunderstanding by many of us of the need to organize work with an asset in such a way that each individual activist is in the spotlight, so that we know well all his positive and negative qualities and, in accordance with this, organize his education, hardening and training in reserve for subsequent advancement. These and many other shortcomings in the work of the party organizations of the republic must explain that a number of enterprises in industry, transport, construction projects and many collective farms are doing poorly with their tasks.

But, speaking of our shortcomings, one cannot fail to note the poor assistance to us from some allied organizations.

Comrade Stalin teaches that the selection of personnel and the verification of fulfillment are the main thing, the main thing in the work of all our organizations. At the February‐March Plenum of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1937, Comrade Stalin, referring to serious shortcomings in working with cadres, pointed out: their political and business suitability. ʺ These words of Comrade Stalin can be attributed to the practice of selection and placement of personnel in individual units of the Main Directorate of State Mining Supervision under the Council of Ministers.

Comrades from the Ministry of Communications are not doing well with checking the execution of decisions, and especially with the execution of decisions. There are a number of decrees and orders of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, obliging the Ministry of

Communications to build and, no later than in the first half of 1953, put into operation a communications enterprise important for our republic. For many years, representatives and designers of the Ministry of Communications came to Baku, but the ministry did not begin to practically implement the decision of the Union Government. The stubborn reluctance of the Ministry of Communications to comply with the governmentʹs decree made us turn to the USSR Council of Ministers on this issue for the second time. In November 1951, the Council of Ministers again ordered the Ministry of Communications to start building the said enterprise. However, judging by the state of construction today and the attitude of the Ministry of Communications to this issue, it, apparently, does not want to fulfill the resolution of the Union Government this time too.

The Party, Comrade Stalin, showing special concern for raising the theoretical and cultural level of our cadres, for equipping them with Marxist‐Leninist theory, at the same time demands a deep knowledge of the task entrusted, to delve into the essence and comprehensively understand the so‐called trifles of each specific issue. It is impossible now to make decisions on this or that issue or to judge the state of affairs in this or that area only on the basis of summaries, memoranda, references from referents and consultants, without subjecting them to critical analysis and not being able to competently and authoritatively resolve this issue. This is especially the case for workers on the ideological front.

It is time to present our comrades from the Union of Soviet Writers and the USSR Academy of Sciences with a demand that they themselves know well and, guided by the teachings of Lenin and Stalin, do everything possible to help local cadres, especially in the national republics, in the study, selection and assimilation of the rich cultural past of peoples Soviet Union all the best, useful, valuable and dear to us, the Soviet people.

In 1948, the leadership of the Union of Soviet Writers, not understanding the essence of the matter, decided to hold a broad discussion in Moscow on the nationality of a number of writers and works of the past, including even such a reactionary, anti‐popular book, saturated with the poison of nationalism and pan‐Islamism, as ʺDede Korkutʺ. This venture was prevented by the Central Committee of the Party. With the help of the Central Committee of the Party, we ourselves have uncovered and exposed the reactionary nature and harmfulness of this book at the local level. After that, the Union of Soviet Writers and its publication Literaturnaya Gazeta, instead of drawing serious conclusions for themselves, raised a fuss around this issue, accusing everyone and everything, but keeping silent about their own mistakes and thereby leading the initiators of this harmful venture away from responsibility.

It would be possible to cite other examples showing that comrades from the Union of Soviet Writers often superficially and incorrectly approach questions concerning the history and culture of the peoples of the Soviet Union. The situation is no better in this respect and at the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Without dwelling on the activities of the institute itself, I would like to say a few words about the journal Voprosy istorii, which essentially reflects the work of this institute as its printed organ. The journal Voprosy istorii not only fails to help the historians of our national republics to understand the nature of this or that historical event, but often takes an erroneous position on these issues. Last year, the magazine started a pointless, abstract discussion about the so‐called ʺleast evilʺ formula in the question of the annexation of non‐Russian peoples to Russia. It is not known what purpose the magazine pursued by this discussion, but in any case it did not help our cadres in the localities, in the national republics, in their struggle against manifestations of bourgeois nationalism in questions of history, if not to say the opposite. This is instead of raising the question of the progressiveness and wholesomeness of the annexation of non‐Russian peoples to Russia on the basis of numerous historical data, archival materials and documents. While in no way underestimating the reactionary nature of the colonialist policy of tsarism, one must not forget that for many peoples in those specific historical conditions, when they were threatened with the danger of complete enslavement and extermination by the backward Turkey and Iran, behind which were the Anglo‐French colonialists, the annexation of these peoples to Russia was for them the only way out and had an exceptionally favorable meaning in their future fate.

It is not evident that the journal Voprosy istorii, guided by the statements of Comrade Stalin about the role of the great Russian people in the fraternal family of Soviet peoples, would comprehensively, specifically elaborate and cover the topical, vital for us, for the further strengthening of friendship between the peoples of our country, the question of invaluable help that our elder brother, the Russian people, has rendered and is rendering to all the peoples of our country! (Applause.)

Comrades! Our party came to its 19th Congress, as never before, solid and rallied around the Leninist‐Stalinist Central Committee, around its leader, Comrade Stalin. The 19th Congress will go down in the history of the Party and the Soviet people as a congress of building communism in our country.

There is no higher duty for every communist, there is no higher honor for every Soviet person, how to be an active fighter for the successful implementation of the decisions of the 19th Party Congress.

The Azerbaijani party organization ‐ one of the tried and tested detachments of our party ‐ will make every effort to ensure that the communists and all the working people of the republics were in the forefront of Soviet people building communism under the leadership of our party, under the leadership of our great leader and teacher, Comrade Stalin!

Long live Comrade Stalin! (Stormy applause.)