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

October 7th

(Evening meeting)

Presiding L.M. Kaganovich.

The meeting concluded the discussion of the reports of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU (b). The congress unanimously adopts a resolution on the report of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b).

At the meeting, speeches of foreign guests of the congress begin.

F.M. Prass, (Molotov region)

Comrades! Our Motherland is experiencing exciting days of a powerful new upsurge in the political and industrial activity of the masses. Surrounded by popular love, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union came to its 19th Congress.

Our party is a heroic party of innovators, an unsurpassed Master of Creative implementation of the brilliant teachings of Marx ‐ Engels ‐ Lenin ‐ Stalin. The Party deeply believes in the creative forces of the popular masses and selflessly serves with faith and truth to its hero people, the creative people.

The Soviet people did not hesitate to entrust their fate to the party of Lenin and Stalin, and under its leadership they move from victory to victory, to the heights of human happiness ‐ to communism.

The indissoluble bond, the inviolable mutual faith of the Party and the people are the fortress that no reactionary forces, no enemies of the working people can crush. With a sense of high pride, ardent love and devotion, we note that the creator of this fortress is our own father and friend, the brilliant leader and teacher of the party and people, the great Stalin. (Applause.)

The summary report of Comrade Malenkov at the congress is yet another bright page that truly captures human hearts in the chronicles of the great struggle and glorious victories of the party of Lenin and Stalin.

Our Motherland has traveled a long historical path since the 18th Party Congress. Over the years, the working people of our country have achieved world‐historic victories, strengthened the might of the Soviet state, raised its international prestige and made another major step forward ‐ along the path of communist construction.

The great Stalin in peacetime saw what became clear to everyone during the war. Thanks to the brilliant foresight of Comrade Stalin in the years preceding the Second World War, a second coal and metallurgical base was created in the east of the country, which played an important role in defeating the enemy during the Great Patriotic War, and in the post‐war period in restoring the national economy of the Soviet Union.

The brilliant successes of the policy of industrialization of the country, the high rates of development of heavy industry, as the basis for the further flourishing of the entire national economy, are especially felt by the workers of the Urals. The Central Committee of the Party, the Soviet Government, and Comrade Stalin personally show constant concern for the all‐round development of the Ural industry.

With heartfelt gratitude to Comrade Stalin, the working people of the Urals call their fertile land the Stalinist Urals. Thanks to the special concern of the Party, Comrade Stalin personally, for the development of the Western Urals, many of the most important branches of heavy industry have been created and are steadily developing in our country: chemical, machine‐building, metallurgical, coal, oil, coke‐chemical, pulp and paper, logging, etc. railway transport. The Molotov region has been turned into one of the largest areas of heavy industry. The gross industrial output in the region has more than doubled in comparison with 1940. In the fourth five‐year plan, the Molotov region achieved serious successes in the development of agriculture. The cultivated area has expanded by 22 percent.

Comrades! In his brilliant work ʺEconomic Problems of Socialism in the USSR,ʺ the great Stalin discovered the basic economic law of socialism, the essential features and requirements of which are to ensure maximum satisfaction of the constantly growing material and cultural needs of the entire society through the continuous growth and improvement of socialist production based on higher technology.

The draft directives of the congress on the fifth five‐year plan for the development of the USSR graphically reflect the requirements of this basic economic law of socialism. The fulfillment of the five‐year plan will be a major new step forward on the road to communism.

Comrade Stalin scientifically worked out the fundamental questions of the transition from socialism to communism and pointed out that Leninʹs formula ʺCommunism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole countryʺ is the only correct one.

The fifth five‐year plan outlines major measures for the electrification of the country. In light of these tasks, the question arises about the maximum use of hydropower resources in the Molotov region, which has a total average annual capacity of all rivers of up to 2.5 million kW, with a possible generation of electricity of about 23 billion kWh.

The new five‐year plan envisages putting into operation the Kama hydroelectric power station and starting the construction of a large new hydroelectric power station on the Kama‐Votkinskaya. However, even after that, the hydropower reserves of the Western Urals will be used by only 15 percent.

Considering the need for further growth in electricity generation in the Urals and the great advantages of the combined operation of thermal power plants and hydroelectric power plants, it is highly advisable to carry out the forced construction of large and medium‐sized hydroelectric power plants on the rivers of the Molotov region. In addition to the construction of the Kama and Votkinsk hydroelectric power plants, it is necessary to provide in this five‐year plan for the preparatory work for the construction of Solikamsk, i.e. Verkhne‐Kama hydroelectric power station.

Hydroelectric construction on the Kama and its tributaries will contribute to the successful solution of the problem of creating a deepwater route on the Kama and Volga, an increase in the cargo turnover of the Volga‐Don navigable canal, as well as ensuring a positive effect on the increase in the average annual electricity generation of the Kuibyshev and Stalingrad hydroelectric stations.

The draft directives of the congress on the five‐year plan set the task of eliminating the lag of the timber industry from the growing needs of the national economy and of relocating logging on a large scale to multiforest areas, including the Urals. The Molotov region with its rich forests conveniently located near the most important transport routes is of particular interest in this sense.

The logging industry in our region is developing rapidly. In 1951, the increase alone over the previous year is almost 3 million cubic meters. But despite the fact that the logging industry is growing rapidly, production plans are still not being fully implemented.

In order to ensure the further growth of logging, it is urgent to resolve a number of issues.

First, about the creation of permanent workers. It is necessary to organize the transfer of workers from those parts of the country where logging is curtailed. It is no longer possible to keep the timber industry equipped with advanced technology on a seasonal workforce. Secondly, it is impossible to remain without a solid repair base. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of mechanical repair plants and workshops, which would fully ensure the repair of machines in the forest industry.

The third question is about timber rafting and construction of new railways. For the development of rafting and the provision of centralized power supply for the comprehensive mechanization of all logging and rafting operations, it is necessary in the fifth five years to provide for the construction of hydroelectric power stations on the Verkhnyaya Kama ‐ Churtanskaya and on the Kolva River ‐ Podbobykinskaya.

We also ask you to make an addition to the five‐year plan and start building the Kirs‐Usolye road.

Relocation of logging to the Western Urals, the development of hydropower engineering and an increase in shipping on the Kama are closely related problems, and their resolution in the State Planning Committee should be comprehensive.

The bottleneck in our area is the production of building materials, which slows down the dark capital construction. The production capacity of factories for the production of local building materials, especially bricks, meets the needs of the region only half. In recent years, work has been carried out in the Molotov region on the construction of new and expansion of existing brick factories. But individual ministries do not pay due attention to this important matter. For example, in the region of the mountains. Molotov, the construction of a large sand‐lime brick plant with a capacity of 120 million pieces per year is envisaged, but the Minister of the Industry of Building Materials, Comrade Yudin, did not provide for the geological exploration and design and survey work in due time, as a result of which the construction of the plant was postponed indefinitely. The Ministry of Power Plants has absolutely no brick production in our region, although it is carrying out huge construction work in our area. For the unconditional fulfillment of the directives on the fifth five‐year plan, which establish for the Urals higher rates of growth in the production of building materials than the average for the Soviet Union, it is necessary to sharply turn attention to this issue of all ministries.

It is necessary, first of all, in the Molotov region to organize a special construction and assembly trust of the USSR Ministry of Construction Materials Industry, with the creation of a large auxiliary mechanized base for the extraction of raw materials.

During the post‐war period, thanks to the concerns of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government for raising the material well‐being of the working people, more than one and a half million square meters of new living space was commissioned in the Molotov region. The socialized housing stock has doubled in comparison with 1940. The construction of schools, hospitals and other cultural and social institutions is underway.

But due to the rapid population growth, the urban economy of the

Molotov region does not meet the increased needs of urban residents. Reconstruction and development of mountains lags behind the workersʹ demands especially seriously. Molotov. The Ministries of Railways, Oil, Chemical, Coal Industry, Ferrous Metallurgy, etc., as well as the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR should pay much more attention to housing, cultural and domestic construction, the construction of water pipelines, sewerage, road construction, improvement of cities and towns and to increase capital investments these goals.

The primary task of our regional party organization is to increase the production of vegetables, potatoes and livestock products to meet the needs of the population of industrial centers.

Comrades! The Communist Party has achieved world‐historic victories. Our victories did not come by themselves. They were achieved in the struggle against difficulties thanks to the daily, tireless organizational and ideological and educational work carried out by the Communist Party among the masses. Comrade Stalin teaches that having a correct political line is the first and most important thing. But for the implementation of the correct political line, cadres are needed who understand the political line of the party, who are able to implement it in practice, who are able to fight and be responsible for it. The main thing in organizational work is the correct selection of personnel and verification of performance.

During the period under review, the Central Committee of the Party, guided by the instructions of Comrade Stalin, did a great job to strengthen the leadership of local Party organizations, to select, educate and promote cadres, and significantly increased the verification of the implementation of the directives of the Party and the Government.

Three years ago, the Central Committee revealed serious errors in the work of the Molotov Regional Committee. The regional committee did not ensure the proper deployment of criticism and self‐criticism in the party organization, glossing over shortcomings in work. In the regional party organization, random selection of personnel on the principle of nepotism and acquaintance was allowed, there was a praise of workers, a hobby for the ostentatious side of the matter, which negatively affected the work. The Central Committee of the party adopted a special resolution, helped the party organization to reveal these errors and outlined the ways to correct them. The Central Committeeʹs resolution played an exceptional role in the life of the regional party organization. The Molotov party organization perceived the Central Committeeʹs resolution as a militant program of its activities and intensified its organizational, ideological and political work. During this time, in the regional party organization, up to 15 thousand young, growing workers were promoted to managerial work. In the Molotov region, there are now about 600 party and Soviet workers who have graduated from the Higher Party and Regional Party Schools.

After the decision of the Central Committee, criticism and self‐criticism began to unfold more boldly in the party organization of the region, which contributes to the improvement of the work of party, Soviet, economic, trade union and Komsomol organizations in the matter of economic and cultural development. Party organizations began to show more concern for the theoretical training, ideological and political hardening of all communists.

We are aware that what we have done is only the first steps towards raising the entire work of the regional party organization to the level of new, large tasks of communist construction. There are still many shortcomings in our work. We will always remember Comrade Stalinʹs instruction that we must not rest on our laurels, that we must constantly see the shortcomings, reveal and eliminate them.

The Molotov regional party organization, like our entire party, came to the 19th party congress as a single, monolithic one, closely rallied around the Leninist‐Stalin Central Committee, around the great leader and teacher, Comrade Stalin. Allow me to assure the Congress, the Central Committee, and Comrade Stalin personally that the Communists and all the working people of the Molotov Region will spare no effort and energy to carry out the magnificent new tasks of building communism.

Comrades, Comrade Stalinʹs deeply scientific theoretical work ʺEconomic Problems of Socialism in the USSRʺ equips the Party and the Soviet people with knowledge of the fundamental economic law of socialism, reveals more clearly the future prospects of our development and fills the working people with new creative forces in the struggle for communism.

Comrade Malenkov, in his report, on the basis of brilliant Stalinist ideas, gave us a detailed program of work for the building of communism. We will march in close ranks along the glorious path of communist construction. No forces will deviate us from this path, because we are people of the Stalinist era, because our movement is headed by the great Stalin.

Long live the genius of our time, the wise leader of communism, the great Stalin! (Applause.)