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).

A.I. Mgeladze, (Georgian SSR)

Comrades!

(...)

It was during this reporting period, under the wise leadership of the leader, commander Comrade Stalin, that our party, the Soviet people and its Armed Forces won a historic victory over the German and Japanese aggressors in the Great Patriotic War, defended the honor, freedom and independence of our great Motherland, liberated the peoples of Europe enslaved by the Nazis and saved world civilization from the fascist pogromists. Comrade Stalinʹs leadership genius ensured us this brilliant victory over Hitlerite Germany and imperialist Japan.

The Soviet people, under the leadership of the Party, fulfilled the postwar five‐year plan ahead of schedule and thus made a giant step forward along the path of building communism. A grandiose construction was unfolded throughout the Soviet country, great construction projects of communism are being carried out, the firstborn of these construction projects, the V.I.Volgo‐Don navigable canal, has already been commissioned. Lenin.

The history of mankind does not know the scale of construction that unfolded in our Soviet country. No capitalist country, including the vaunted America, can have such gigantic structures as our great Stalinist construction sites of communism. Only the Soviet system is capable of accomplishing what mankind has dreamed of for many centuries. The Soviet people and our friends abroad are justly proud of these successes. But these successes of ours evoke hatred and malice among the enemies of the Soviet country, the enemies of communism. So, what! It is not the first time for us communists to hear the furious howl of enemies.

The leaders and founders of the Communist Party and the worldʹs first socialist state, Lenin and Stalin, saw in this howling enemies of communism only a proof of the partyʹs rightness, the rightness of its cause. The vicious howl of enemies today is only a confirmation that we are on the right path to new victories of communism. It is a fact that the Soviet people, under the leadership of the party, in an unprecedentedly short period of time turned our country from a backward and wretched country into the richest and most powerful country. As a result, our people began to live a free, prosperous and cultural life. It is in our country, in the Soviet Union, that a new, socialist society has been built for the first time in the history of mankind, in which the exploitation of man by man has been abolished and the working people are fullfledged owners of all material and cultural benefits.

Comrades! An outstanding historical event in the life of our party and the entire international communist movement is the new classic work of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, ʺEconomic Problems of Socialism in the USSR,ʺ published on the eve of the party congress.

Our party regards Marxist‐Leninist theory not as a collection of dogmas, but as an eternally living teaching, continuously enriched by the experience of the revolutionary struggle of the working class and the latest achievements of science. An example of a creative attitude towards revolutionary theory is provided by the luminary of science ‐ Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who constantly develops and enriches Marxism‐Leninism in new historical conditions.

In this work, Comrade Stalin deeply and comprehensively solved many questions of the political economy of socialism, gave a brilliant analysis of the nature of economic laws under socialism, discovered the basic economic law of socialism, showed the features of commodity production and the operation of the law of value under socialism. This work of Comrade Stalin raises Marxist‐Leninist science to a new, higher level, arming the Communist Party and the entire Soviet people in the struggle for the further successful construction of communist society in our country.

This work of Comrade Stalin is a work of tremendous theoretical and practical importance, of the greatest international importance. It gives into the hands of the working people of foreign countries a powerful ideological weapon in the struggle for peace, democracy and socialism.

In the report of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Comrade Malenkov, on the basis of Stalinʹs plans, launched a grandiose program for further communist construction in our country. All the forces of the Party and the people must be mobilized for the successful implementation of this program.

The years that have elapsed since the 18th Party Congress have been years of brilliant victories for the Partyʹs Leninist‐Stalinist national policy. The Leninist‐Stalinist friendship of the peoples of the multinational Soviet Union was even more strengthened, cemented.

As a result of the exceptional attention and daily concern of the Central Committee of our party, the native Soviet government, personally Comrade Stalin, the former backward outskirts of Tsarist Russia have now turned into flourishing Soviet republics. A striking confirmation of this is the enormous achievements in the economic and cultural development of Soviet Georgia.

During the period under review, Soviet Georgia made great strides forward and radically changed its appearance. From 1939 to 1951 inclusively, over 8 billion 800 million rubles were invested in the Georgian industry, taking into account the funds for major repairs. The years of the post‐war Stalinist five‐year plan were marked by the rapid growth of all industries in the republic. The gross industrial output of Georgia in 1951 exceeded the level of 1939 by 85.1 percent. The production of manganese ore has significantly increased, coal production has increased several times, the production of metal‐cutting machines has increased by 2.9 times, and the production of electricity by 2.3 times.

On the initiative of Comrade Stalin, the Rustavi Metallurgical Plant and the Kutaisi Automobile Plant were built in Georgia. This opened a new page in the history of Soviet Georgia. Nowadays, Georgia provides the country with an ever‐increasing amount of manganese, steel, rolled products, coal, machine tools, machinery, food and light industry products, and construction materials.

Thanks to the help of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the Union Government, and Comrade Stalin personally, new hydroelectric power plants were built in Georgia. Nevertheless, the deficit of electricity in Georgia is still great. Even after the hydroelectric power plants under construction in our country come into operation, the shortage of electricity in 1955 will still occur.

The issues of hydroelectric construction are extremely topical for us, because the lack of electricity hinders the further development of the republicʹs industry. We also do not fully meet the electricity needs of our utilities and household enterprises and the population. At the same time, the opportunities for hydro‐construction in Georgia, as you know, are exceptionally great. We ask the Central Committee of the Party and the Union Government to take into account the serious backlog of the energy base of the Georgian national economy and help us to rectify this situation in the coming years.

Georgia gives the country canned food, essential oils, vintage wines, cognacs, champagne, and mineral waters in significant quantities. The output of food products in 1955 will increase sharply. Thus, in comparison with 1950, vintage wines will be produced by 69.5 percent more, cognacs ‐ by 63.7 percent, and the production of champagne will be increased to 4 million bottles. The quality of the wines and champagne produced will dramatically improve.

The tea industry will be especially developed. In 1955, 161 million kg of tea leaves should be procured in Georgia, which means an increase in comparison with 1950 by 66.6 percent. This will ensure the production in 1955 of more than 41 million kg of long tea.

To fulfill this task, in the coming years, 26 new tea factories with a total processing capacity of 78 million kg of green tea leaves and one teapressing factory should be built in Georgia.

We need to get serious about the mechanization of tea plantation work. The current situation with this matter is simply intolerable. To the credit of our Georgian Soviet technical intelligentsia, it must be said that they have already designed wonderful machines ‐ tea‐collecting, teaforming and machines for fumigating and processing tea plantations, and we just need to organize the production of these machines. For this, it will be necessary to build a special agricultural machinery plant in Georgia.

We need to move more boldly along the road of mechanizing laborintensive work in the tea industry. This is the path of further powerful growth of the tea industry in Georgia.

Great strides have been made in the field of agriculture. Georgia is an industrial country with highly developed agriculture cultivating special industrial crops that are important for our country. Georgia now provides the country with much more tea, grapes, fruits, high‐quality aromatic yellow Georgian tobacco and other agricultural products than it did before the war. Collective farms of Georgia now distribute more food and money according to workdays. Hundreds of collective farms receive millions of dollars in income. Nevertheless, in the field of agriculture we have many shortcomings and unused reserves.

New important tasks have been set before the Georgian agriculture. By

1957, Georgia must finally solve the grain problem and provide itself with grain of its own production. This task was set before us by Comrade Stalin, and the Communists of Georgia are doing everything to successfully solve it.

Tens of thousands of hectares of new tea plantations are to be established, and by the end of 1955 the area under tea will amount to 71,591 hectares. By improving the care of each tea bush, the yield of the tea plantations should be dramatically increased. We set ourselves the task ‐ in 2 ‐ 3 years to collect at least 3 ‐ 3.5 thousand kg of green tea leaves from each hectare of a fully assembled tea plantation.

As you know, the severe frosts of the winter of 1949‐50 caused great damage to the subtropical economy of Georgia, in particular to citrus plantations, as a result of which most citrus plantations died. The Union government, on the initiative of Comrade Stalin, adopted a resolution on measures to restore and further develop citrus plantations in the Georgian SSR. The communists of Georgia have vigorously taken up the implementation of this decree, and by now new plantations have been established on an area of 11,012 hectares, including lemons ‐ 4.984 hectares, oranges ‐ 3.418 hectares and tangerines ‐ 2.610 hectares. The restoration of citrus plantations at the direction of Comrade Stalin is carried out using the best varieties of lemons and oranges. Special attention is paid to the culture of lemons, as the lemon is the most valuable of all citrus fruits.

The new five‐year plan provides for an increase in citrus plantations in Georgia by 4 times. By the end of 1955, citrus plantations in Georgia will have reached 30 thousand hectares.

Omu obliges us. We are well aware that nowhere in the Soviet Union are there such wide opportunities for growing the best varieties of lemons, oranges and tangerines as we have in Georgia. Fulfilling Comrade Stalinʹs instructions on the further development of citrus fruits, we undertake to ensure the delivery of citrus fruits to the state: in 1953 ‐ 400 million pieces, in 1954 ‐ 500 million pieces, in 1955 ‐ 700 million pieces, of which lemons ‐ 40 million and oranges ‐ 25 million, and in 1957 ‐ up to one billion citrus fruits, including lemons ‐ 100 million and oranges ‐ 40 million. The Georgian party organization considers it a matter of honor to fulfill this obligation ... We must give the Soviet people an abundance of tasty, juicy, vitamin‐rich citrus fruits.

Tobacco growing in Georgia is on the rise. The Union government has set before us the task of further increasing the yield of tobacco. Georgian tobacco is extremely important for the tobacco industry of the Soviet Union, since Georgia does not provide our country with tobacco in general, but exclusively high‐quality yellow flavored tobacco. We will do our best to fulfill this task of the Union Government with honor.

Viticulture, fruit growing, silkworm growing, essential oil crops, noble laurel, bamboo, eucalyptus, medlar, Georgian persimmon and many other crops cultivated in Georgian agriculture will receive further development.

Agriculture in Georgia is multifaceted and labor intensive. This obliges the Georgian party organization to pay more attention, manage agriculture more skillfully and concretely, and deal with all the details of agriculture every day.

Our agriculture requires a lot of fertilizers, which are still imported to Georgia from other regions of the country. At the same time, our scientists have established that from poor carbonate ores, mined along the way from manganese ore, it is possible to obtain mineral fertilizers of even higher quality than ammonium nitrate. If an appropriate plant is built and the processing of these ores is organized, then about 100 thousand tons of high‐quality fertilizers can be obtained per year. This will free the railway transport from the import of fertilizers to Georgia.

The enlargement of collective farms contributed to a significant increase in the productive forces in agriculture, better use of technology, and an increase in the income of collective farmers. The collective farm system brought a prosperous and cultural life to the Georgian peasantry. The villages of Georgia were adorned with newly built comfortable houses of collective farmers, new school buildings, clubs, parks, kindergartens. On the collective farm fields of Soviet Georgia, in the houses of Georgian collective farmers, songs are sung about joyful work, about ardent love and devotion to their great Soviet Motherland, to the one who forged happiness and freedom to the people, to the creator of the collective farm system, the great leader and teacher, Comrade Stalin. (Applause.)

Great successes have been achieved in Georgia also in the field of cultural development. Georgia is a country of complete literacy. We do not have a single family in which there would be no person with higher or secondary education. Georgian Soviet literature, our theaters, painting, music have achieved significant development. The Georgian people achieved these successes thanks to the help of all the peoples of the Soviet Union and, above all, of their elder brother, the great Russian people.

The successes of Soviet Georgia are part of the common successes achieved by our great Motherland. We, Soviet people, owe all our victories to the one who, with an indestructible will and energy, with the firm hand of the helmsman, leads our party, our country from victory to victory ‐ to the wise leader and teacher, our beloved Comrade Stalin. (Prolonged applause.)

Soviet Georgia would have had much more success in the development of the national economy and culture, if not for the political mistakes and shortcomings in the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. Recently, among some of the Communists, political carelessness and roguishness have spread. This happens primarily where there is no real, Bolshevik order in work, where the political education of cadres has been launched, where self‐criticism and criticism from below are absent, and thus the ground for ceremonial well‐being and complacency is created. In such conditions, some workers become infected with political blindness, lose their revolutionary vigilance, and turn into political philistines and rogues. As a result, in Georgia there were facts of infiltration of leading positions by dishonest, fake people who did not deserve political trust.

The exceptionally great tasks that have been set before us require further improvement and perfection of party organizational and partypolitical work, an increase in revolutionary vigilance, the elimination of political myopia, carelessness and roguishness.

The Georgian party organization, on the basis of the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the personal instructions of Comrade Stalin, decisively eliminates these shortcomings in its activities.

Comrade Stalin teaches us to develop revolutionary criticism and selfcriticism in such a way that the valves of criticism from below are constantly open.

Comrade Stalin teaches us to boldly expose shortcomings and to strengthen the ties of the Party with the masses in every way.

Comrade Stalin teaches ‐ not to let any negative phenomenon grow, but to nip it in the bud, so that it does not turn into a serious danger. You will punish one in time, but you will save a hundred.

The Georgian party organization came to the XIX Congress of the party, united and monolithic, like a militant detachment of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, proud of the consciousness that it was founded and nurtured by the best student of the immortal Lenin ‐ beloved Comrade Stalin. (Applause.)

The Communists of Georgia at their 15th Congress revealed all the shortcomings and mistakes in their work, in the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, outlined the ways to eliminate them and expressed their full readiness and adamant determination to carry out in a militant manner the grandiose tasks of building a communist society in our country, put forward by party, the great Stalin.

Strengthening the party political and organizational work, correctly educating and placing cadres, decisively improving the ideological work of party organizations, the cause of the communist education of the working people, the Georgian party organization will undoubtedly be among the leading organizations of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the struggle to fulfill the historic decisions of the 19th

Party Congress. ...

Long live our Leninist‐Stalinist Party Central Committee!

Long live the great leader, commander, our teacher, beloved and dear comrade Stalin with all his heart! (Stormy applause.)