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

October 7th

(Morning session)

Presiding N.A. Bulganin, after a break L.M. Kaganovich.

The meeting continued the discussion of the reports of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU (b).

At the end of the meeting, the congress heard a report from the Credentials Committee. The Congress unanimously approves the report of the Credentials Committee.

I.G. Cabin, (Estonian SSR)

Comrades! (...)

The Estonian Communist Party is happy that since 1940, as one of the units of the great Communist Party of the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, it has been participating in this fruitful creative work.

Liberated from the yoke of fascism, the Estonian people, under the leadership of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Comrade Stalin personally, with the enormous help of the entire Soviet people and especially the great Russian people, in a short time developed their economy and culture on such a scale that made it possible to transform the Soviet Estonia from an agrarian country, with a small peasant farm, from a former appendage of the imperialist powers, to a republic of highly developed industry and large‐scale socialist agriculture. Thanks to the daily care of the Communist Party and Comrade Stalin personally, Soviet Estonia in a short time achieved profound qualitative changes in industry and agriculture. On the initiative of Comrade Stalin, a powerful gas‐shale industry has been created in the republic, uninterruptedly supplying gas to the mountains. Leningrad, by the beginning of 1953 gas will also go to the capital of the republic ‐ Tallinn.

The Estonian people in an extremely short period of time raised such major textile industry enterprises as Krenholm and Baltic manufactures from ruins. These enterprises decayed under the bourgeois regime. They were completely destroyed during the Nazi occupation.

The machine‐building industry of the republic, equipped during the post‐war five‐year plan period with high‐performance modern Soviet technology, has mastered and produces complex equipment for the oil, gas and shale industries, electric motors for mines and rolling mills, electrical equipment for high‐pressure boilers and a number of other types of complex equipment.

Along with the growth of industry in the republic, the production of electricity is growing. By the end of the fourth five‐year plan, Soviet Estonia generated significantly more electricity than bourgeois Estonia. In 1951, the capacity of power plants increased by 43 percent in comparison with 1950.

The growing industry of the republic requires more and more electricity. The possibilities for the further construction of power plants in Estonia are extremely favorable based on the use of oil shale fines, i.e. slate of the third grade. We hope that the government of the USSR will help build the much needed new large oil shale power plant that will meet the growing demand for electricity and at the same time solve the problem of using oil shale fines, the accumulation of which seriously impedes the further development of the oil shale industry. In addition, by burning third‐grade oil shale in the furnaces of power plants, it is possible, at minimal additional costs, to obtain binder types of cement grade 150‐200 for our construction from ash.

The Estonian peasantry, convinced by the example of the peasantry of the fraternal Soviet republics of the advantages of collective farming, quickly reorganized agriculture in a new, socialist way, and united into large collective farms. This restructuring took place in our country under conditions of fierce resistance from the kulaks, the remnants of which, even now, having made their way into some collective farms, are trying to undermine them from within. However, the increased vigilance of the collective farm peasantry in Estonia and the strengthened party and Komsomol organizations in the Estonian countryside are successfully overcoming these isolated manifestations of kulak resistance.

The enlargement of the collective farms, as well as the constant assistance of the Party and the government of the USSR to the collective farms of the republic, ensured the rapid growth of the social economy. In 1951, the collective farms spent much more money on production needs than in 1950.In capital construction, in particular in the construction of livestock buildings, in 1951 the collective farms of the republic invested 17 million rubles more than in 1950, on reclamation work ‐ 6.5 million rubles more, for the purchase of pedigree productive livestock, cars, as well as other inventory and equipment ‐ 10 million rubles more than in 1950.

In modern conditions, the fate of agriculture is decided primarily by the MTS. The Party and the government are showing great concern for the mechanization of agriculture in the republic. I have already spoken about how quickly collective farm property is growing and expanding in our country. However, the state public property in agriculture, in the form of machine‐tractor machines, as well as machine‐reclamation stations, as the basis of modern agriculture, thanks to the care of the Party and the government, is growing much faster. This is especially evident in the example of our young republic.

Now we have twice as many tractors as in 1950. The number of grain harvesters, flax harvesters, flax grinders and other sophisticated modern agricultural machines and reclamation equipment ‐ excavators, bulldozers, graders working on our collective farm fields ‐ is growing rapidly.

In 1951, the machine‐tractor stations of the republic completed 45 percent of all the main work in collective farm production, and in 1952, the MTS took over 62 percent of this work. By the end of the five‐year plan, the mechanization of agricultural work in our country will reach 85 ‐ 90 percent.

Would individual peasant farms have been capable of introducing powerful agricultural machinery so quickly? Of course not. But even the collective farms could not have done this without the help of the state, given that we are talking about high, growing and improving technology, replacing old technology. Comrade Stalin points out in this regard: “Can our collective farms raise these expenses, even if they are millionaires? No, they cannot, since they are not able to take on billions of dollars in expenses, which can be recouped only in 6 ‐ 8 years. These expenses can be borne only by the state ... ”.

The Estonian collective farm peasantry warmly thanks their party, their native government for the tremendous assistance they are rendering to them, re‐equipping the republicʹs agriculture on the basis of the latest modern technology. Only the Soviet state, only a truly peopleʹs government, undertakes and is capable of solving such a large problem in agriculture as its rearmament on the basis of complex technology.

Our task is to make the best use of the equipment that the state so generously gives to agriculture. For this it is necessary to better train cadres of machine operators from collective farmers and collective farmers — cadres who would be able to use equipment to the bottom. We do not always cope with the training of cadres of machine operators for agriculture, and the shortcomings in this matter in our country, in the Estonian SSR, are even greater.

The socialist restructuring of the republicʹs agriculture and equipping it with modern machinery created conditions for an even more rapid development of agriculture in the new, fifth five‐year plan.

Livestock is the leading branch of agriculture in the republic, providing the main marketable products and large incomes to our collective farms. On collective farms, the construction of livestock buildings is widely developed, which are being erected in future collective farm centers. However, we need to build much more than is being built now.

The fruitful influence of the collective farm system is clearly visible in the rate of development of animal husbandry, this most important branch of the republicʹs agriculture. In the Estonian SSR collectivization was mainly completed in 1950. If before that the collective farm herd grew due to the socialization of livestock of individual peasants entering the collective farms, then in 1951 ‐ 1952. the collective farm herd grew mainly due to the rearing of young animals on the collective farms themselves, and the success of our collective farms in this is beyond doubt. On collective farms, there are now 43 percent more cattle, 58 percent more pigs, and 65 percent more sheep than in 1950.

The productivity of livestock on collective farms is also growing and, in particular, the productivity of cows. If in 1950 on average 1,600 liters of milk were produced from each cow, then this year we will receive at least 2,000 liters for each cow on the collective farm and will fulfill the plan for milk yield. The increase in productivity over 1950 will thus be 20 percent. By the end of the fifth five‐year plan, we must and will have milk yield of at least 2,500 liters on average from each cow on the collective farm.

The rapid growth of the herd and the growth of its productivity requires a solid forage base. The collective farms of the republic take care of this, as can be seen from the following data. Over the past two years, the total sown area on collective farms has grown by 24 percent, while the sowing of forage crops, in particular the sowing of perennial grasses, has grown by more than 33 percent; the area under potatoes, which in our conditions is largely a fodder crop, has increased by almost 34 percent. However, this growth is insufficient, because it does not keep pace with the rapid growth of the livestock population and does not provide the necessary rise in its productivity.

In addition, the yield of forage crops is still growing very, very slowly. To provide cattle with pastures, as well as to increase the yield of hayfields, large reclamation works are being carried out in the republic. In 1951 and this year, more than 20 thousand hectares of shrubs were cut down, meadows and pastures were improved on an area of up to 42 thousand hectares. However, the opportunities provided by the Soviet state are poorly used and land reclamation plans are not being implemented. This, in turn, affects the development of animal husbandry, especially its productivity. The combat mission of the Estonian communists is to expand the food supply. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to carry out reclamation work on an even larger scale than now. We have few good land reclamation equipment. I join Comrade Andrianovʹs proposal on the need to design and manufacture perfect land reclamation equipment for the northwestern regions and republics of the Soviet Union.

Along with the rapid development of the economy, the material wellbeing of the Estonian people is also growing. School buildings, institutes, hospitals destroyed during the war have been restored in the republic; dozens of new schools, hospitals, thousands of residential buildings were built, whole new cities arose in the shale basin. However, it should be noted that the Ministry of Coal Industry does not show sufficient concern for the cultural and domestic needs of miners in the Estonian oil shale basin.

Culture is growing rapidly in the republic, the Academy of Sciences has been established, and higher education is rapidly developing. In 1951 ‐ 1952 two new higher educational institutions were created ‐ the Agricultural Academy and the Pedagogical Institute. During the reign of the bourgeois clique in Estonia, few received higher education, and even these few were sometimes unable to find work. Specialists had to go to any kind of black job or remain unemployed. Not so now. During the years of Soviet power, about 5 thousand engineers, economists, doctors, agronomists and other specialists graduated from the republicʹs higher educational institutions. But there is still a big shortage of specialists. Especially a lot of them are needed for growing agriculture. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Higher Education does not show sufficient concern for providing universities with classrooms and dormitories. For more than three years now, it has been choosing a construction site for the building of the Polytechnic Institute in our spacious city, but things are not moving forward.

In the report comrade. Malenkov pointed out that in some organizations there were facts of underestimation and even suppression of criticism and, thus, there was no struggle with various painful phenomena in work. This remark applies to our Estonian party organization, where the leadership of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers for quite a long time made significant shortcomings and mistakes in their work. They were expressed in the absence of a proper fight against manifestations of bourgeois nationalism. The Bolshevik principle of selection of personnel was not observed, there were facts of suppression of criticism.

The Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks promptly exposed these serious shortcomings and mistakes, helped our party organization to eliminate them and improve all party work. Fulfilling the decision of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the shortcomings and mistakes in the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Estonia, which is historic for our party organization, the party organization of the republic has achieved significant success in the development of the economy and culture. However, it cannot be said that we have already outlived all the shortcomings in the development of criticism and self‐criticism, especially criticism from below. There are many shortcomings in our work, and only on the basis of criticism and self‐criticism it is possible to get rid of them.

Comrades! Thanks to the Soviet regime and the leadership of the Communist Party, all the creative forces of the Estonian people began to flourish. The culture is developing ‐ national in form, socialist in content. All the best things that have been suppressed by the Estonian bourgeois nationalists for years are now in motion. The talents and spiritual forces of our people, who have won real freedom by overthrowing the bourgeoisie and joining the voluntary union of Soviet peoples, are being revealed more and more deeply.

The work, creativity and life of the Estonian people, as well as of all the peoples of the Soviet Union, in the family of socialist nations is joyful, for this union is a fortress against which any imperialist predators have been broken and will be destroyed in the future. They will not disrupt the inspired and joyful peaceful labor of the Soviet peoples, for our people are leading forward to communism, our leader and teacher Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. (Applause.)

Comrade Stalin is the architect of communism. And in all the languages of the peoples of the USSR, in all the languages of the world in the mouths of the working people, it sounds equally joyfully as a call, as a determination to fight and go forward, to communism, the slogan:

Long live our leader and teacher, the great genius of mankind, the architect of communism ‐ Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)