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

8 October, (Morning session)

Presiding V.M. Andrianov.

The meeting unanimously approved the Report of the Central Auditing

Commission of the CPSU (b).

The Congress hears a report by Comrade M.Z. Saburov ʺDirectives of the XIX Party Congress on the fifth five‐year plan for the development of the USSR for 1951 ‐ 1955ʺ and proceeds to discuss it.

At the end of the meeting, representatives of foreign communist parties spoke.

Organizational matters

The chairperson gives the floor for a proposal on the report of the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU (b) comrade. Aristov. He makes the following proposal: to approve the report of the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU (b). The proposal was adopted unanimously.

The congress proceeds to discuss the third item on the agenda: ʺDirectives of the XIX Party Congress on the fifth five‐year plan for the development of the USSR for 1951‐1955.ʺ The floor is given to the Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee, Comrade M.Z. Saburov.

N.K. Baybakov, (Moscow)

Comrades! In the period between the 18th and 19th Party Congresses, major changes took place in the oil industry, which are of serious importance for our country. The XVIII Congress of the All‐Union Communist Party in its decisions determined the main tasks of the development of the oil industry. The first and most important of them was: ʺTo create a new oil base in the area between the Volga and the Urals ‐ʺ Second Baku ʺʺ.

In the Law on the five‐year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy of the USSR for 1946 ‐ 1950. the oil workers were tasked with ensuring the rapid recovery and development of the oil industry, reaching the pre‐war level of oil production and refining in 1949 and surpassing this level in 1950; to continue the comprehensive development of oil production and refining in the eastern regions.

The oil workers of the Soviet Union can report to the 19th Congress of the All‐Union Communist Party: as a result of the enormous daily assistance provided to the oil industry by the Party and the Government, these party directives have been fulfilled.

During the Great Patriotic War, the German fascists inflicted great damage on the oil industry. Mainly affected were the oil regions of the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, where the overwhelming amount of oil was produced in the pre‐war years. The oil fields of the Krasnodar Territory and North Ossetia were completely disabled. The oil industry of the Grozny region was severely undermined. In the oil industry of Azerbaijan, the countryʹs main oil base, drilling operations were almost completely stopped, and oil production was significantly reduced.

At the direction of the Party and the Government, oil workers, even during the war years, took measures for the fastest restoration of the oil industry in the South and its widespread development in the Volga and Ural regions.

The post‐war five‐year plan for oil production and processing was fulfilled ahead of schedule. The oil industry continues to overfulfill the annual plan in the current five‐year period. Oil workers fulfilled the plan ahead of schedule for nine months of this year. We can confidently say that the plan for 1952 will also be overfulfilled as a whole.

Over the past ten years, as a result of the extensive development of geological exploration, the explored industrial reserves of oil and gas have increased several times. At the same time, the largest growth in commercial oil reserves falls on the Volga‐Ural oil‐bearing region, where oil production has increased several times over the past ten years.

Suffice it to say that in the regions located between the Volga and the Urals, in 1952 oil production will amount to 40 percent of the total oil production of the Soviet Union, and together with other eastern regions of the country, it will amount to more than 50 percent.

Thus, the instructions of the party and our great leader Comrade Stalin ‐ to take seriously the organization of the oil base in the regions of the western and southern slopes of the Ural ridge ‐ have been fulfilled by the oilmen. In the area between the Volga and the Urals, a second powerful oil base, ʺSecond Bakuʺ, has been created. Significant changes have also taken place in other oil‐bearing regions of our country. Drilling and construction of offshore fields at sea depths of up to 20 meters has already been mastered. Oil production is developing in the Turkmen SSR and Krasnodar Territory. The oil and gas industry are also growing in other regions and republics of our country.

Comrade Stalin in his historic speech at the pre‐election meeting of voters of the Stalin electoral district of the mountains. On February 9, 1946, Moscow, among other tasks of enormous national importance, formulated a program for the further powerful development of the oil industry: to ensure that the oil industry could produce annually up to 60 million tons of oil. The solution of these tasks, Comrade Stalin pointed out, will probably take three new five‐year plans, if not more. ʺBut this deed can be done, and we must do it,ʺ said Comrade Stalin.

The extensive development of geological exploration has led to the fact that our country is currently in one of the first places in the world in terms of explored industrial oil reserves. This now makes it possible to significantly increase the rate of development of the oil industry and to fulfill ahead of schedule Comrade Stalinʹs instructions to raise the annual oil production to 60 million tons.

The rapid growth in oil production was achieved due to a sharp increase in well drilling. The volume of drilling work in the current year has increased by 2.8 times as compared to 1940, including exploratory drilling ‐ almost five times. This growth was due to the provision of drilling with powerful first‐class equipment and especially due to the introduction of new, more advanced methods of drilling, and primarily the turbine drilling method. No other capitalist country has such firstclass machines for the oil industry as our Soviet turbodrill. Today, more than 40 percent of the total tunneling of the Ministry of Oil Industry enterprises is carried out by the turbine method.

Thanks to the introduction of turbodrills, the average drilling speed in the East is 500 ‐ 600 m per rig per month instead of 200 ‐ 300 m in 1940. And many of our advanced drilling foremen, thanks to the introduction of forced operation of the turbines, now provide penetration of up to one and a half thousand meters per rig per month.

With the help of turbodrills, we are now drilling wells up to a depth of 5 thousand meters, as well as inclined wells that allow us to extract oil from layers lying under the bottom of the sea, river or under buildings. The deviated wells alone have already given the country millions of tons of oil.

New advanced production methods created by the efforts of Soviet engineers and scientists are no less important for ensuring the growth of oil production. A particularly important role here is played by the introduction of new rational schemes for field development with the use of maintaining reservoir pressure, as well as the introduction of secondary production methods. Through the introduction of these methods, additional millions of tons of oil were obtained, and a lot of material resources and funds were saved, amounting to hundreds of millions of rubles.

Significant changes have taken place in the oil refining industry. New, significant capacities for direct oil distillation, thermal and catalytic cracking have been created. The output of light oil products and the production of high‐quality gasoline have been increased. New processes for the production of synthetic fats from petroleum products were also introduced, which made it possible to reduce the consumption of vegetable oil and fats for the production of lubricants by tens of thousands of tons. The artificial liquid fuel industry is being re‐created, which makes it possible to increase the resources of gasoline, oils and chemical products in the country and organize their production in regions without oil.

On the personal instructions of Comrade Stalin, a new gas industry has been created in the country over the past years. The largest gas pipelines and gas plants have been built, which supply natural and artificial gas to the capital of our Motherland ‐ Moscow, as well as Leningrad, Kiev, Kuibyshev and Saratov. This year the Kohtla‐Järve ‐ Tallinn gas pipelines and others are being commissioned. The explored reserves of natural gas ensure the further rapid development of this industry and the gasification of numerous cities of our country, as well as the chemical processing of gas.

The petroleum engineering industry has significantly increased the output of petroleum instrumentation, equipment and instrumentation. Our construction organizations have achieved significant success in the construction of factories, fields, main pipelines, mastered high‐speed methods of installation of installations, assembly of tanks and housing construction.

Thanks to the concern of the Party, the Government, and Comrade Stalin personally to improve the material well‐being of oil workers, a decision was made on benefits for oil workers, providing for seniority payments and pensions. In the last two years alone, oil workers have been paid remunerations of up to 400 million rubles. The material, cultural and living conditions of workers in the oil industry have significantly improved over the years. In the last three years alone, oilmen have built and commissioned more than 1.700 thousand square meters. m of living space, many hospitals, childcare facilities and clubs.

The technical culture and creative activity of oil workers have increased. The number of rationalization proposals received has increased fivefold over the five years. 264 oil workers were awarded the high title of the Stalin Prize laureate.

However, the oil industry has serious shortcomings that prevent it from moving forward. There is a lag in geological exploration work in the Azerbaijan SSR, in Grozny, in the Dagestan ASSR. We need to improve geological exploration work in these areas in the near future. The technical re‐equipment of drilling is being carried out in an insufficient volume and pace. The unproductive time in drilling is unacceptably long. The lack of a high‐performance bit, which is the fault of the Ministry of Petroleum itself, is delaying the introduction of high‐speed drilling methods. The construction of facilities for sealing oil production, collection and pumping is carried out at an insufficient pace, as a result of which a large amount of gas is not captured. Secondary methods of oil production are being introduced at an insufficient pace, primarily methods of maintaining reservoir pressure, which should become an organically necessary part of a rational system for the development and operation of oil deposits.

A serious shortcoming in the work of the construction organizations of the ministry is their unsatisfactory fulfillment of the plan for commissioning new installations at oil refineries and oil fields.

Comrades! The draft directives of the 19th Congress of our party on the fifth five‐year plan for the development of the USSR set new, exceptionally great and honorable tasks for the oil workers. Oil production according to the five‐year plan is to increase by 85 percent. The oil industry has never known such rates of production growth. The foreseen increase in oil production prejudges the early fulfillment of Comrade Stalinʹs instructions to raise oil production in our country to 60 million tons per year.

To ensure the processing of all produced oil, it is envisaged to double the capacity of oil refineries, as well as the introduction of new, more advanced processing methods, which will increase the yield of light oil products and improve the technical and economic indicators of the refineries.

During the current five‐year period, the oilmen must perform exceptionally great work in terms of their scope and importance. It should be noted that the implementation of the directives of the Congress to increase oil production by 85 percent in 1955, compared with the level achieved in 1950, provides for an exceptionally rapid growth of the oil industry in the Ural‐Volga regions. In this case, along with oil workers, an honorable role belongs to employees of other ministries, and first of all to employees of the Ministry of Power Plants and the Ministry of Railways.

In the draft directives of the 19th Party Congress, the tasks of developing oil production from offshore areas are especially noted. First of all, this concerns the further and faster development of drilling and oil production in the offshore areas of Azerbaijan, where millions of tons of oil are already being produced offshore. To successfully complete this task, it is necessary to solve the problem of building offshore drilling rigs at great sea depths in one or two years. In the development of offshore oil production, other ministries and departments, as well as scientific research organizations, and above all the USSR Academy of Sciences, should also take a more active and effective part.

It is also necessary to provide marine fisheries with appropriate vessels, mainly cranes, with a carrying capacity of up to 150 tons. Ensuring the envisaged growth in oil production will require from oilmen a sharp increase in the volume of drilling operations as the main lever for raising oil production, widespread introduction of new drilling equipment, especially turbine drilling and high‐performance bits, as well as widespread introduction of new methods of development and operation of oil deposits.

In connection with the foregoing, I consider it expedient to specifically reflect in the directives of the 19th Congress the need for further growth in oil production in the eastern regions of the country, a sharp increase in the volume of drilling operations, the widespread introduction of turbine drilling and the creation of high‐performance bits, as well as the introduction of new methods of developing oil deposits. Doubling the capacity of oil refineries will require us to create new powerful construction organizations capable of building large factories in a short time. We need to build in five years new highly productive oil refineries with a total capacity equal to the current one, a large number of pipelines and metal tanks.

It is necessary to strengthen housing and cultural and social construction. According to a five‐year plan, the Oil Industry Ministry is to build about 4.5 million square meters. m of living space.

The machine‐building industry, which produces oil equipment, faces major challenges. Now we need new powerful drilling rigs capable of drilling wells up to 6 km deep, high‐quality bits, high‐pressure oil equipment and instrumentation.

The draft directives of the 19th Party Congress on the fifth five‐year plan for the development of the USSR set the tasks for the builders ‐ to complete the total volume of state capital construction by 90 percent more than in the fourth five‐year plan, and to reduce the cost of construction work by at least 20 percent. The volume of capital work in the oil industry will increase 2.3 times compared with the fourth fiveyear plan. To double the volume of construction in the Union in one five‐year period is an honorable but difficult task. The fulfillment of the tasks of the fifth five‐year plan largely depends on the successful work of the builders. Therefore, it is necessary to do everything possible to improve the work of construction organizations and to ensure the unconditional fulfillment of tasks in the field of construction.

However, the situation in construction as a whole cannot be considered satisfactory. We must not forget that in the fourth five‐year plan the plans for the construction and commissioning of facilities were often not fulfilled. This obliges our organizations, which are to be engaged in construction, to outline and implement such measures that will enable our entire construction to keep pace with the advanced industries.

Our country is so powerful and economically strong that it can solve this serious problem in the current five‐year period. There are many hidden reserves in construction; the most important of them is a sharp reduction in the seasonality of construction work. A significant decrease in seasonality will create important prerequisites for fulfilling annual plans and reducing construction costs by saving overhead costs, uniform workload and increased productivity of workers, and providing better conditions for creating a permanent cadre of builders.

To reduce the seasonality in construction, it is first of all necessary to raise construction planning to a higher level both through the State Planning Commission and through the ministries and departments. It is necessary to enlarge and strengthen construction organizations, since large construction organizations are less susceptible to the influence of seasonality. It is necessary to eliminate the seasonality in the supply of construction projects, to carry out further work to significantly increase the number of permanent construction workers. It is also necessary to raise the level of industrialization of construction, to develop and introduce new, more advanced technical methods of conducting construction work in the winter.

That is why I propose to supplement the directives of the XIX Congress on the fifth five‐year plan with a task to reduce the seasonality in construction, to enlarge and further strengthen the countryʹs permanent construction organizations.

Comrades! The oil workers of the Soviet Union are aware of the greatness of the tasks facing them, they are aware of the complexity and difficulty of solving these tasks, and at the same time do not doubt that they will successfully overcome all difficulties in the way the Party teaches us.

The oil workers of our country, inspired by the decisions of the historic 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, will unswervingly fight to increase the pace and quality of their work by introducing new methods of drilling, oil production and refining and improving work organization.

There is no doubt that the oilmen of the Soviet Union, under the leadership of our glorious party, will achieve the early fulfillment of the fifth five‐year plan for the extraction and processing of oil and gas.

Long live our great Communist Party ‐ the party of Lenin ‐ Stalin, leading us to the victory of communism! (Stormy applause.)