REPORT of the CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the COMMUNIST PARTY of the SOVIET UNION to the 20Th PARTY CONGRESS
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N. S. KHRUSHCHOV REPORT OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION TO THE 20th PARTY CONGRESS FOREIGN LANGUAGES PUBLISHING HOUSE Moscow 1956 OI^Z3 £- N. S. KHRUSHCHOV REPORT OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION TO THE 20th PARTY CONGRESS February 14, 1956 FOREIGN LANGUAGES PUBLISHING HOUSE Moscow 1956 CONTENTS I. THE INTERNATIONAL POSITION OF THE SOVIET UNION............................................................................... 8 1. The Steady Economic Advance in the U.S.S.R. and the People’s Democracies............................. 9 2. The Economic Situation in the Capitalist Countries and the Further Aggravation of the Contradictions of Capitalism...............................................................13 3. The Imperialist Policy of Lining Up Aggressive Blocs and Fanning the “Cold War.” The Struggle of the Peoples for Relaxation of International Tension . 21 4. Disintegration of the Imperialist Colonial System 25 5. The Soviet Union in the Struggle for the Consolida tion of Peace and International Security................30 6. Some Fundamental Questions of Present-Day Inter national Development................................................ 38 II. THE INTERNAL SITUATION OF THE U.S.S.R. 48 INDUSTRY AND TRANSPORT ...................................... 48 1. The Basic Results of the Fifth Five-Year Plan in Industry.........................................................................48 2. Speeding up Technical Progress in Industry ... 53 3. Improvement of Transport and Telecommunication Equipment ............................................................... 56 4. Proper Distribution of Productive Forces....................59 5. Productivity of Labour, Cost of Industrial Produc tion, and Capital Construction................................. 61 AGRICULTURE............................ 63 1. Grain Farming—Foundation of All Agriculture . 65 2. The Tasks of Further Advancing Livestock Farming 70 3. Mechanization of Agriculture , , , , ... ..................75 6 k. Development of State Farms......................................... 78 5. Seed Production—an Important Element in the Progress of Agriculture.............................................79 6. Construction in the Collective Farms......................80 7. For Better Guidance of Agriculture.......................... 83 THE RISE IN THE MATERIAL AND CULTURAL STANDARDS OF THE SOVIET PEOPLE............................................................. 85 1. Fuller Satisfaction of the People’s Growing Material Requirements............................................................... 87 2. Towards a New Flowering of Soviet Culture and Science ........................... 95 FURTHER CONSOLIDATION AND DEVELOPMENT 0® THE SOVIET SOCIAL AND STATE SYSTEM ............................... 102 1. Some Questions of Our National Policy..............103 2. Development of Socialist Democracy. Improvement of the State Apparatus. Strengthening of Soviet Law 108 III. THE PARTY..................................... 117 1. Consolidation of the Communist Party’s Ranks and the Strengthening of Its Leading Role in the Soviet State ......................................................................... 117 2. Party Organizational Work.......................................123 3. Questions of Ideological Work................................... 134 Comrades, the period separating us from the Nineteenth Party Congress is not a very long one—only three years and four months. But the amount of work the Party has done, and the significance of the events that have taken place during this time both at home and abroad make it one of the important periods in the history of the Com munist Party of the Soviet Union and its efforts to in crease the strength of our country, build a communist society, and ensure world peace. In home policy, they were years during which the Party, guided by the interests of the whole people, made a critical appraisal of the situation in agriculture and in dustry, and, on the basis of the successes already achieved, adopted a number of important measures designed to ensure a great advance in the country’s socialist de velopment. In so doing it boldly uncovered shortcomings in different fields of economic, governmental, and Party activity, broke down outdated conceptions, resolutely sweeping aside everything that had become outmoded and was hindering our advance. It is now clear to all that the measures adopted by the Party were correct and timely. They ensured steady de velopment of the socialist economy and a further rise in the Soviet people’s material and cultural standards. There have also been important developments in world affairs during the period under review. Thanks to the consistent peaceful foreign policy of the socialist coun tries the state of international tension, which was fraught with great danger, has been replaced by a certain detente. It was because the Soviet Union and its friends—the People’s Republic of China and the other People’s De mocracies—promptly took a number of successive dip 7 lomatic steps supported by all peace-loving forces that real prospects for improvement opened up in the interna tional arena. All this shows that our Party takes due account of the urgent needs of both home and foreign policy and pre pares prompt measures appropriate to these needs. This clearly indicates our Party’s close and unbreakable ties with the people, the wisdom of its Leninist collective leadership, and the all-conquering power of the Marxist- Leninist teaching upon which it bases its activity. Throughout these years the Party has held high the great banner of the immortal Lenin. Fidelity to Leninism is the source of all the successes of our Party. {Stormy applause.) Let us now examine our country’s international position and its internal situation during the period under review. I THE INTERNATIONAL POSITION OF THE SOVIET UNION The emergence of socialism from within the bounds of a single country and its transformation into a world sys tem is the main feature of our era. Capitalism has proved powerless to prevent this process of world-historic signif icance. The simultaneous existence of two opposite world economic systems, the capitalist and the socialist, devel oping according to different laws and in opposite direc tions, has become an indisputable fact. Socialist economy is developing towards the ever-in creasing satisfaction of the material and cultural require ments of all members of society, the continuous expan sion and improvement of production on the basis of high er techniques, and closer co-operation and mutual assist ance between the socialist countries. The trend of capitalist economy is that of the ever- increasing enrichment of the monopolies, the further intensification of exploitation and cuts in the living stand ards of millions of working people, particularly in the colonial and dependent countries, of increased militari st zation of the economy, the exacerbation of the competitive struggle among the capitalist countries, and the maturing of new economic crises and upheavals. 1. THE STEADY ECONOMIC ADVANCE IN THE U.S.S.R. AND THE PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACIES The period under review was marked by a great expansion in the national economy of the U.S.S.R. and also in that of the People’s Republic of China, the Polish People’s Republic, the Czechoslovak Republic, the Hungarian People’s Republic, the Rumanian People’s Republic, the People’s Republic of Bulgaria, the People’s Republic of Albania, the German Democratic Republic, the Korean People’s Democratic Republic, the Mongolian People’s Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam. The rates at which industrial output has increased in the Soviet Union and in capitalist countries from 1929 to 1955 can be seen from the following table: Volume of Industrial Output in U.S.S.R. and Capitalist Countries (1929=100) 1929 1937 1943 194 6 1949 1950 1952 1955 U.S.S.R. 100 429 573 466 870 1,082 1,421 2,049 All capitalist countries . 100 104 — 107 130 148 164 193 Of which: United States . 100 103 215 153 164 190 210 234 Great Britain . 100 124 118 144 153 153 181 B1E France .... 100 82 63 92 92 108 125 Italy ............... 100 99 72 108 124 148 194 Western Ger fcg. many . 100 114 35 93 117 150 213 Japan............... 100 169 *231 51 101 115 173 239 * Data for 1944. These stat istics show that in a quarter of a century, or, to be more exact, in 26 years, the Soviet Union increased its industrial output more than 20-fold, despite the tre mendous damage done to its national economy by the war. Meanwhile, the United States, which enjoyed excep tionally favourable conditions, was able to do little more than double its production, while industry in the capital ist world as a whole failed to register even that growth. The People’s Democracies have also considerably sur passed the capitalist countries in rate of growth of indus trial production. Last year the pre-war level of industrial output was exceeded in Poland more than four times, in Bulgaria more than five times, in Czechoslovakia more than two times, in Hungary three and a half times, in Ru mania almost three times, in Albania more than 11 times, and in the German Democratic Republic more than two times. The People’s Republic of China, which began to build socialism later than the others, has made outstanding progress: its industrial output is more than double the pre war maximum and more than four times the 1949 figure. Much has also been achieved