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

October 6, (Evening meeting)

Presiding D.S. Korotchenko.

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).

Ya.E. Kalnberzin, (Latvian SSR)

Comrades! Since the XVIII Congress of the All‐Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, our Motherland has passed a glorious and majestic path. Comrade Malenkov, in his report on the work of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), spoke about the great victories and conquests won over the past period by the Soviet people under the leadership of the glorious Communist Party, its leader and teacher, Comrade Stalin.

The history of mankind knows not a single people, except our Soviet people, who would have won such great world‐historical victories, performed such heroic deeds and deeds both on the battlefields and in peaceful construction. There has never been another party in history that would have played such a great role in the life of its people and the fate of all mankind, which would have raised the international prestige of its state so high as the party of Lenin and Stalin.

The Communist Party of Soviet Latvia came to the 19th Party Congress with great success. The Communist Party of Latvia was admitted to the VKP (b) at the end of 1940, after the Latvian people, under the leadership of the Communist Party, overthrew the anti‐popular fascist government and established Soviet power in Latvia. Therefore, we, the delegates of the Communist Party of Latvia, for the first time since 1919 participate in the work of the Congress of the CPSU (b). We bring our heartfelt gratitude to our dear and beloved leader and liberator of the Latvian people, Comrade Stalin. (Applause.)

The working people of Soviet Latvia owe all their victories to the party of Lenin and Stalin, which showed the Latvian people the path to victory and confidently leads them to the shining heights of communism. The successes of the Republic of Latvia in socialist construction are a living and vivid example of the strength of the Leninist‐Stalinist friendship of peoples. The great Russian people helped the working people of Latvia to win freedom. The entire family of fraternal Soviet peoples is rendering invaluable assistance to the Latvian people in building a new life.

The reactionary nationalist bourgeoisie, during its twenty years of domination, has turned Latvia into a food and raw material appendage of the West European imperialist states. The actual masters of the country were foreign capitalists. In 1939, the share of foreign capital in all industrial production in Latvia was about 52 percent. In some industries this percentage was even higher. The bourgeois rulers retarded the development of the countryʹs productive forces. The industry worked mainly on imported raw materials. In bourgeois Latvia, dozens of enterprises were closed annually, and thousands of workers were thrown into the streets. In some years in Latvia there were up to 70 thousand unemployed.

The working peasantry of bourgeois Latvia was in an extremely difficult situation. In the last five years of the domination of the fascist clique alone, 25,000 peasant farms went bankrupt, and their property was sold under the hammer. The army of farm laborers reached 200 thousand people.

In bourgeois Latvia, science, literature and art served the capitalists. All kinds of reactionary theories flourished in science oriented towards the imperialist West; the theological faculty played a leading role at the university.

From the first days of the establishment of Soviet power in Latvia, tremendous creative work began under the leadership of the Communist Party, with the help of all the fraternal republics. Thanks to the Soviet system, the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic quickly followed the path of economic and cultural development. Industry in 1940 alone produced 21 percent more output than in the previous year, 1939. Unemployment was completely eliminated. Farm laborers and land‐poor peasants received land from the Soviet regime. The first machine‐tractor stations, machine‐horse‐rolling stations were organized. Peasant farms were also assisted with mineral fertilizers, seeds and money.

The treacherous attack of the Nazi invaders temporarily interrupted the peaceful labor of the Latvian people. Together with all the peoples of the Soviet Union, Latvians rose to defend their socialist homeland. The best sons and daughters of our people fought heroically in the ranks of the Soviet Army and in partisan detachments, and those evacuated into the interior of the country worked selflessly at enterprises and collective farms.

The war and the three‐year fascist occupation caused tremendous damage to the national economy of the republic. The total amount of losses caused to the national economy of the republic amounted to 20 billion rubles.

After the heroic Soviet Army defeated the German‐fascist invaders, the working people of Latvia, under the leadership of the Communist Party, began to rebuild their war‐torn economy and expand socialist construction. The republicʹs industry was restored in less than three years, and the working people of the republic, relying on the industrial power of the Soviet Union, not only restored the industrial enterprises destroyed by the war, but radically reconstructed them on the basis of the introduction of the latest Soviet technology and advanced production methods. A huge number of machines, machine tools and other equipment were received by Latvia from the Russian Federation and other union republics. A number of large enterprises have completely renewed their equipment.

Along with the restoration, new industrial construction was widely developed. Instead of small, fragmented industry, large‐scale industry grew up, some branches of which acquired all‐Union significance. The level of industrial production in 1950 established by the fourth five‐year plan was reached already in 1948. How high the rates of industrial development of Soviet Latvia were in the post‐war years can be seen from the fact that the average annual growth of industrial production was more than 45 percent. The total volume of industrial production in the five‐year period has increased more than six times, and the level of the pre‐war 1940 in output has been exceeded three times. The number of industrial workers in the republic for the same time increased by 2.5 times.

During the years of the post‐war Stalinist five‐year plan, the structure of industrial production in Soviet Latvia changed dramatically. Heavy industry took the first place. Machine building and metalworking industry became its leading branches. Their share in the total industrial production of the republic has risen to 48 percent.

The industrial development of the Latvian SSR has allowed our industry to master new types of products that have never been produced before: cars for electrified railways, powerful electric motors and generators for electric rolling stock, tram cars, mobile power plants, floating grab cranes, universal woodworking machines, control and measuring devices for cars, rock‐harvesting machines, electric lighting fixtures for high‐rise buildings in Moscow and other types of products.

During the years of the post‐war Stalinist five‐year plan, the economic face of the republic has radically changed. From a backward, agrarian country, as Latvia was under the bourgeois system, it turned into an industrial‐collective farm republic with a highly developed large‐scale industry.

The working people of Latvia are active participants in the greatest buildings of the Stalinist era ‐ hydroelectric power plants and canals on the Volga and Dnieper, Amu Darya and Don. Latvian enterprises send large grab cranes, telephone equipment, measuring instruments, building materials to the great construction sites of communism.

The party organization of the republic educates the working people in the spirit of a truly socialist attitude towards labor. The workers of our enterprises realize that they are working not for the exploiters, but for themselves, for the good of their people, for the good of the socialist homeland. Having become the real masters of their country, workers and engineers and technicians take care of using the internal reserves of their enterprises. In the last three years alone, the republicʹs industry has generated over 1.2 billion rubles in profit. The pre‐Congress competition took on a wide scale. The collectives of enterprises direct their socialist commitments to overfulfilling production targets, to increasing labor productivity, reducing costs, and improving product quality. There are already two thousand workshops and brigades of excellent quality in the republic, four thousand brigades are competing for this honorary title. In honor of the XIX Congress of the CPSU (b), dozens of industrial enterprises fulfilled their nine‐month plan ahead of schedule.

However, it should be recognized that there are a number of serious shortcomings in the work of the republicʹs industry. In his report, the secretary of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade Malenkov, sharply criticized the shortcomings in the work of industry, agriculture, in the field of party organizational, party political and ideological work. The indicated shortcomings take place both in our republic and in our republican party organization. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Latvia took measures to eliminate these shortcomings and omissions, but these measures are still clearly insufficient, for which the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Latvia and the Council of Ministers of the Latvian SSR were severely criticized at the XII Congress of the Communist Party of Latvia.

The leaders of some ministries, central administrations, trusts, party and Soviet bodies, often content with high average indicators, do not always ensure the rhythmic work of every enterprise, every branch of industry. As a result, many enterprises do not fulfill their production plans. Some heads of ministries, departments and enterprises violate state discipline and do not ensure the fulfillment of the plan for the types of products in the established nomenclature and assortment, do not fulfill planned targets to increase labor productivity and reduce costs. We still have insufficient use of internal resources and opportunities for an even greater growth of the industry of Soviet

Latvia.

In the draft directives of the 19th Party Congress on the new five‐year plan, great attention is paid to the development of the economy and culture of our republic. A new and vivid manifestation of Stalinʹs concern for the further prosperity of Soviet Latvia imposes on us a special responsibility for fulfilling the most important economic and political tasks.

Great prospects are opening up for us in the further development of electrical machine building, machine tool building, shipbuilding. The increase in electricity generation in our republic by about 2 to 2.5 times, as stipulated in the draft directives of the 19th Party Congress, is of paramount importance for the industrialization of Soviet Latvia. The republic is in dire need of a significant expansion of the energy base, since at present enterprises, especially in Riga, are supplied with electricity insufficiently and with great interruptions. For a radical solution to the energy problem, it is necessary to include in the plan of the fifth five‐year plan the design of new large hydroelectric power plants on the Daugava River.

The development of agriculture in Latvia in the post‐war years is closely related to its socialist reconstruction. One of the first measures taken by the Soviet government after the liberation of Latvia from the Nazi invaders was the completion of the agrarian reform, which had begun in 1940. As a result of this reform, 75 thousand landless and landpoor peasants received land.

Convinced of the advantages of collective farming, having taken over the rich experience of collective farms in the fraternal republics, the working peasantry of Latvia, on the basis of voluntariness, firmly embarked on the path of socialist reorganization of agriculture. At first, slowly, in a stubborn class struggle against the kulaks and bourgeois nationalist elements, and then the number of agricultural artels grew rapidly. The year 1949 was the year of the final turn of the Latvian peasantry to the socialist path of development, and at present more than 98 percent of peasant farms are united into collective farms.

The successes of collective farm development have determined the broad possibilities of mechanizing agriculture, and at present there are more than 100 machine and tractor stations in Latvia, which have become the main and decisive base of agriculture and have played a huge role in collectivization. The machine and tractor stations are equipped with a large number of tractor seeders, cultivators, flax headers, reapers and other agricultural machines. Harvesters for harvesting bread, flax and beet appeared for the first time in the fields of Latvia. The Soviet government provides the collective farm peasantry with tremendous assistance. Only in 1951 Latvia received a lot of tractors, combines, threshers, thanks to this, in 1952 the sown area of collective farms in comparison with 1951 increased by 107 thousand hectares. The sown area for spring wheat was expanded by 48 percent, industrial crops ‐ by 11 percent, vegetable crops ‐ by 42 percent.

On the opening day of the 19th Party Congress, the republic reported to Comrade Stalin on the fulfillment of the state grain supply plan. The republic has produced food crops this year by almost a million poods more than last year at this time.

Implementing the decision of the Party and the government on a threeyear plan for the development of public livestock breeding, all collective farms in the republic currently have four livestock farms, and some have five farms. The republicʹs collective farms have fulfilled the three‐year plan for the development of animal husbandry, and they have fulfilled the task in terms of the number of pedigree and improved cattle. Collective and state farms have done a lot to improve breeding and increase the productivity of livestock. The foundation was laid for the development of pedigree horse breeding. Further successes in the development of animal husbandry will be associated with the need to expand the forage base in every possible way.

Our successes in the field of agriculture could have been more significant if the Party, Soviet and agricultural bodies did not allow serious deficiencies in the management of agriculture. For a long time, some local Soviet and party bodies ignored cases of gross violation of the Charter of the agricultural artel, did not promptly expose the intrigues of the enemies of the collective farm system who encroached on collective farm public property, showed liberalism towards violators of the Charter of the agricultural cartel and did not bring them to harsh responsibility. Party and Soviet bodies have not yet been able to overcome the harmful traditions of the old village, which hinder the timely implementation of agricultural work on the basis of scientific data. In many collective farms, the culture of agriculture is still at a low level. At present, crop rotations have been developed only in 927 collective farms out of 1,500.

A broad program for the further development of agriculture in our republic has been outlined for the next five years. The gross harvest of grain crops should be doubled, which will enable the Republic of Latvia to provide itself with its own bread. The gross harvest of the most important industrial crops ‐ flax and sugar beets ‐ will more than double. By the end of 1955, the number of cattle should double, pigs ‐ three times, poultry ‐ ten times.

For the further development of agriculture in the republic, it is necessary to carry out reclamation work. Large areas of agricultural wetlands ‐ about 700 thousand hectares ‐ need to be drained. In addition, a significant part of the soil cover of the republic has excessive moisture, therefore, not only swampy areas, but also large areas of already used agricultural land require drainage.

We have, as in Lithuania, to solve the big and complex task of organizing collective farm villages instead of farms. The presence of numerous farms creates serious difficulties in solving the problem of organizational and economic strengthening of collective farms and in carrying out measures aimed at the rapid and comprehensive development of socialist agriculture. To carry out this work, we need appropriate assistance from the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Union Government.

It is our duty to eliminate in the shortest possible time the serious shortcomings in the management of agriculture, and significantly improve political work in the countryside, to concentrate the efforts of the entire collective farm peasantry on fulfilling and overfulfilling all the tasks stipulated by the state plan, as well as the obligations undertaken by agricultural workers in a letter to comrade Stalin.

Comrades! Economic successes, their strength and duration, Comrade Stalin teaches, entirely depend on the level of party organizational and party‐political work. The republican party organization has grown several dozen times during the years of Soviet power and came to the XIX Congress of the party organizationally strengthened, ideologically grown, closely rallied around the Lenin‐Stalin Central Committee of the CPSU (b), the great leader and teacher of Comrade Stalin. (Applause.)

Comrade Stalinʹs brilliant work ʺEconomic Problems of Socialism in the USSRʺ equips our cadres with knowledge of the economic laws of socialism, illuminates our further path of transition from socialism to communism, and helps to successfully solve all complex issues of building communism in our country.

Let me, on behalf of the republican party organization, assure the XIX Congress of the CPSU (b), Comrade Stalin, that, unswervingly guided by the decisions and directives of the Stalin Central Committee, armed with the decisions of the XIX Congress, relying on the granite theoretical foundation of the works of Lenin and Stalin in solving all questions of communist construction, By deploying and leading selfcriticism and criticism from below, the party organization of Latvia will continue to be a loyal and loyal detachment of the great party of LeninStalin, ready to fulfill all the tasks assigned to it in the struggle to build communism in our country.

Long live the great party of communists, the party of Lenin and Stalin ‐ the inspirer and organizer of all our victories!

Long live the great leader and teacher of the Party and the Soviet people, the best friend of the Latvian people, our dear, beloved Comrade Stalin! (Prolonged applause.)