18th Congress

Eighteenth Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (b). 10-21 March 1939

The Eighteenth Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held in Moscow on March 10-21, 1939. 1,569 delegates with a casting vote and 466 with an advisory vote represented 1,588,852 party members and 888,814 candidates for party members.

The order of the day: Reports of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) (IV Stalin), the Central Auditing Commission (MF Vladimirsky) and the delegation of the CPSU (b) in the ECCI (DZ Manuilsky); The Third Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy of the USSR (VM Molotov); Changes in the Charter of the CPSU (b) (A.A. Zhdanov); Election of a commission to change the Program of the CPSU (b); Election of the central bodies of the party.

The report of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks gave an analysis of the country's international and internal situation, and the prospects for its development. The congress noted that the socialist mode of production had become dominant, that socialism was basically built in the USSR and the country had entered a new phase of development - the completion of the construction of a socialist society. The task was set - to catch up and overtake in the economic respect the most developed capitalist countries. The report examined theoretical questions about the stages of development and functions of the socialist state, condemned as erroneous views about the imminent withering away of the state. The congress adopted a new Party Charter, reflecting changes in the class structure of Soviet society.

The division into categories depending on belonging to a particular social group was canceled. The charter was supplemented with a clause on the rights of party members. The procedure for closed (secret) voting was established for elections of party bodies. The charter canceled massive purges. The rights of primary party organizations were expanded, and their responsibility for the implementation of party decisions increased. Party organizations of industrial enterprises, including state farms, collective farms, and MTS, were given the right to control the activities of the administration. To strengthen party leadership of the economy, the Central Committee of the party could create political departments and select party organizers in decisive sectors of socialist construction. The congress approved the third five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR. The congress elected the Party Central Committee, consisting of 71 members and 68 candidates for members of the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission - 50 members. The 18th Congress summed up the results of the transition period from capitalism to socialism.

In the field of economic development

- The results of the first five-year plan have been summed up.

- The second five-year plan for the development of the national economy of the USSR (1933-1937) was adopted, which provided for the transformation of the USSR into a "techno-economically independent country and the most technically advanced state in Europe."

- The program for the completion of the technical reconstruction of the entire national economy and the growth of production in the second five-year period was approved, presented by the State Planning Committee of the USSR, and adopted by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.

Established:

- control figures for the volume of production;

- directions for the implementation of technical reconstruction of the national economy;

- measures to increase labor productivity and reduce costs;

- growth of production throughout agriculture (2 times);

- measures for the complete completion of collectivization and implementation of the technical reconstruction of all agriculture;

- growth in the turnover of the main types of transport;

- directions of technical reconstruction of transport and communications;

- directions (program) of personnel training;

- the need for the broadest expansion of the work of scientific and technical institutes, and especially factory laboratories;

- the total volume of capital work on the national economy for the second five years in the amount of 133.4 billion rubles. (in 1933 prices) against 50.5 billion in the first five years;

- commissioning of new and reconstructed enterprises for the second five years with a total cost of 132 billion rubles. against 38.6 billion rubles. in the first five-year plan;

- the most important construction sites;

- directions for the distribution of productive forces (including the creation of new support bases for industrialization in the eastern regions of the Union (Ural, Western and Eastern Siberia, Bashkiria, Far East Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia);

- a program to improve the material and cultural level of workers and peasants, and tasks in the area of raising the material and cultural standard of living of workers and workers in the countryside.

The congress determined that the second five-year plan for the development of the national economy should solve 5 tasks:

- Elimination of capitalist elements and classes in general, final liquidation, on the basis of complete completion of collectivization of peasant farms and cooperation of all handicraftsmen, private ownership of the means of production; the elimination of the multi-structured economy of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the socialist mode of production as the only mode of production, with the transformation of the entire working population of the country into active and conscious builders of socialist society;

- Completion of the technical reconstruction of the entire national economy of the USSR on the basis created during the first five-year plan and following the path of a further rapid rise in industry that produces means of production (heavy industry);

- A more rapid rise in the well-being of the workers and peasants and, at the same time, a decisive improvement in the entire housing and communal affairs in the USSR;

- Strengthening the economic and political positions of the proletarian dictatorship on the basis of an alliance of the working class with the peasantry for the final elimination of capitalist elements and classes in general;

- Further strengthening of the country's defense capability.

The Congress elected:

Central Committee: 71 members, 68 candidates for members of the Central Committee.

Central Auditing Commission: 22 members.

Party Control Commission: 61 members.