Libmonster ID: UZ-1500
Author(s) of the publication: M. A. YUKHVETS

The Soviet people meet the XXIV Congress of the CPSU with dignity. It has long been a tradition to organize a socialist competition in honor of the next party congress, to celebrate its work with labor exploits. When and how was this tradition born? Who initiated it?

The Great October Socialist Revolution awakened the creative forces of the working class and the peasantry, and created the economic and political prerequisites for a conscious attitude to work. In the spring of 1919, during the days of deadly military danger, the first communist subbotniks were born in the Soviet Republic. Calling them the "great initiative", the heroism of the workers in the rear, V. I. Lenin emphasized their significance: "Communism begins where the selfless, overcoming hard work, concern of ordinary workers for increasing labor productivity appears."1 . The Ninth Congress of the RCP (b) (March - April 1920), in its resolution "On the immediate tasks of economic construction," noted the great role of labor education of the masses for "increasing the intensity and expediency of labor." The resolution stated: "Competition is a powerful force for raising labor productivity." 2 In the mid-1920s, socialist competition was already quite widespread. In the years of the first five-year plan, when the USSR was implementing the program of a full-scale offensive of socialism on the entire front and laying a solid foundation for the socialist economy, the competition was marked by a new scale. By this time, the country had created all the conditions for its transformation into a broad mass movement: the socialized industrial sector determined the development of the economy, the technical re-equipment of industry began, the political and labor activity of workers increased, and their role in economic construction increased. The heroic traditions of the first years of Soviet power were not only preserved, but also multiplied by the working people.

The impetus for the development of mass socialist competition was the article published in Pravda on January 20, 1929 by V. I. Lenin's Central Committee (previously unpublished) "How to organize competition?". To the workers of the Land of Soviets, to the builders of socialism, were addressed the words of the leader, written by him at the beginning of 1918: "Our task now that the socialist government is in power is to organize competition." 3 On January 26, Komsomolskaya Pravda appealed to the working youth to implement the precepts of Ilyich, to organize an All-Union socialist competition for reducing the cost of production and improving the quality of products. On March 5, 1929, the staff of the Leningrad plant "Krasny Vyborgets" through Pravda suggested that all factories and factories of the USSR begin a labor roll call to find out how the cost of production is reduced. The appeal met with a wide response. By April 1, 70 enterprises had already participated in the roll call .4 By May 1929, the competition had reached over 2 million people. Of great importance for the further development of the competition was the address of the XVI Party Conference in April 1929 "To all workers and laboring peasants of the Soviet Union". The Party regarded competition as a permanent method of involving the working people in active socialist construction, and saw it as one of the guarantees of the successful implementation of the first five-year plan. "The competition and the five-year plan are inextricably linked," the appeal 5 stated . On May 9, 1929, the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) adopted

1 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 39, p. 22.

2 "The CPSU in resolutions and decisions of Congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee", vol. 2, 8th ed., p. 153.

3 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 35, p. 196.

4 "Istoriya Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soyuza" (History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union), vol. 4, book 1, Moscow, 1970, p. 592.

5 "The CPSU in resolutions and decisions of Congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee", vol. 4, 8th ed., p. 252.

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resolution "On the socialist competition of factories and plants". It outlined measures for the further development of competition and percussion.

After the appeal of the XVI Party Conference and the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b), the creative initiative and activity of the masses developed more and more. In the spring of 1930, the party was preparing for its next congress, the XVI Congress. It was a time of intense communist struggle for the general party line - rapid industrialization of the country and socialist restructuring of agriculture. Preparations for the congress have been launched at enterprises and villages. This work was characterized by the deepest confidence and loyalty, by a willingness to fight to the end for the party's cause. The workers celebrated the congress with a new exertion of energy, an even greater burst of creative energy and initiative. On May 15, the staff of the Leningrad Metal Plant reported to "the head of the great socialist construction site-the approaching congress of our party" about the transition to a 7-hour working day and the opening of the vtuz plant. The workers wrote in the report that the transition to a 7-hour working day is one of the forms of shock work of workshops and teams, which is the most important incentive to fulfill and exceed the industrial financial plan. They promised that social competition would become one of the decisive and leading levers of high rates of work at the plant. The plant staff pledged to provide a new 22,000-horsepower steam turbine and the first 17,000-horsepower hydro turbine in the USSR by the XVI Congress of the CPSU(b) .6
On May 19, 1930, the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) "On the preparation of theses for the XVI Party Congress" was published, and then the theses themselves. The materials for the congress were widely debated in the country. In enterprises, collective farms, and state farms, workers, employees, and collective farmers made specific commitments in honor of the congress. "The first tractor - to the XVI party congress" - promised Stalingrad tractor builders. The central and local press informed the workers of the U.S.S.R. about the progress of the pre-congress competition, and about the commitments made towards the Congress. The party and Komsomol organizations of the Belgorod railway junction, as a gift to the XVI Congress, decided to repair 3 locomotives and 5 wagons in excess of the plan. Following this resolution, non-partisan workers submitted a collective declaration of their desire to participate in the super-program repair of steam locomotives and wagons. 7 Shock brigades and workshops named after the XVI Congress of the CPSU (b) were organized at Minsk enterprises. Workers collectively undertook to eliminate breakthroughs and exceed industrial financial plans. The boiler shop of the Iron Foundry organized 6 new shock brigades, all members of which were participants in the socialist competition. The shop has declared itself a shock shop. He pledged to complete the production task by 105% with the complete elimination of absenteeism and lateness. Workers of the Minsk shoe factory decided to completely eliminate the breakthrough in the industrial financial plan. They declared themselves mobilised and put all the work of the factory at a rapid pace. Workers of the Bobruisk Dzerzhinskiy factory organized two shock brigades named after the XVI Party Congress. About 100 people joined the brigades.

In the Bryansk region, enterprises, workshops and districts entered into a socialist competition for exceeding industrial financial plans, as well as for helping collective farms. Profintern members prepared a steam locomotive, 10 wagons and 1,500 ploughs as a gift to the congress; workers of the Cement Plant prepared 80,000 barrels of cement in excess of the program tasks. The 3-thousandth collective of workers of the Kiev Steam locomotive Repair Plant decided: all workers should join shock brigades, produce 10 cars and 1 powerful locomotive in excess of the plan, giving it the name of the XVI party congress, and produce 15 tractor booths every day instead of 10. As a gift to the congress, the workers of the Kosogorsky plant (Tula) pledged to repair blast furnace No. 1 within 30 days instead of 60 days . In all the most important areas of socialist construction, workers with Bolshevik tenacity significantly outstripped the pace of work projected by the plans. Fighting for the fulfillment of the five-year plan, more and more detachments of the working people of the country joined the socialist competition and shock troops. This was their best gift to the XVI Congress of the Leninist Party.

The pre-congress competition covered communes, collective farms, and state farms. On the eve of the congress, the Progress commune reported: "Under the leadership of a small group of party members, supported by a broad peasant-poor activist, with the participation of the CoE-

6 "Polyustrovsky giant", 15. V. 1930.

7 Pravda, 29. V. 1930.

8 Ibid.

page 207

our commune launched a socialist competition for rednecks and red partisans, fulfilling the planned sowing plan of 1208 hectares with an excess of 608 hectares... Sending greetings to the leader - the XVI Congress, the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and Pravda-we call on all the collective farms of the U.S.S.R. to hold firmly in their hands the great banner of collective farms and to steadily implement the slogan of complete collectivization and the elimination of the kulaks as a class. " 9
The Communists were the first to enter the pre-congress socialist competition and make commitments in honor of the congress. The party organization of the Moscow Dynamo factory decided: by the XVI Congress of the CPSU(b), 100% of Communists and Komsomol members should be sent to shock brigades! Resolute struggle against deviations from the general line of the party and conciliationism, over-fulfillment of the industrial financial plan by improving the quality of products and reducing their prime cost, reaching the entire mass of Dynamo members by shock brigades and involving shock workers in the ranks of the party - these were the slogans with which the factory party organization went to congress 10 . On June 4, 1930, Pravda published the address of the open party meeting of the factory (discussed and approved at shop meetings of workers) I appeal to all workers of the USSR to exchange their work experience. In their address, Dynamo members talked about how they, having widely developed the socialist competition, achieved over-fulfillment of the industrial financial plan of the first year and half of the second year of the five-year plan. They wrote :" We pledge our full support to the party and its Central Committee in a resolute struggle both against the most dangerous "right deviation" at this stage, and against "left" opportunism and conciliatory attitude towards them! ...We promise the congress to increase output to 17 million rubles instead of the annual target of 15 million rubles... We appeal to all grassroots party and trade union organizations and the working masses to discuss our letter and share through the press the experience of the struggle for the implementation of the general line of the party..., to give the XVI All-Union Party Congress a collective report on their combat work, on their experience, achievements and shortcomings that prevent the implementation of the industrial financial plan. We make the same appeal to our fellow collective farmers and state farm workers. " 11
The Dynamo workers ' initiative was warmly supported by the working class of the Soviet Union. The roll call was attended by teams of the first-born of the five-year plan-Stalingrad Tractor, Rostselmash and many other enterprises. The Leningrad Metal Works, having discussed the appeal of the Dynamo members at all the party meetings of the guild, created a special commission consisting of representatives of party and professional organizations, workers, drummers, etc., to draw up a collective response; the first working conference on the struggle for cadres discussed the response and approved it. The Dynamo challenge coincided with the early completion of the construction of the XVI Party Congress turbine and the first Soviet hydroturbine12 at the plant . The success of the plant was due to the high production activity of the team, caused by socialist competition and shock resistance. By the XVI Congress, there were 379 shock brigades at the plant, which included 71 % of the members of the party organization and 97.3% of the Komsomol organization .13 The workers of the Petrovsky Kherson Plant sent a reply to the Dynamo members: "We welcome the Dynamo members with their victory on the front of the struggle for the general party line, for the organization of socialist labor... We are committed to using the experience of Dynamo in the fight for the industrial financial plan and its quality indicators. By the XVI Party Congress, we promise to ensure not only the fulfillment, but also the over-fulfillment of the company's production tasks. " 14 At Rostselmash, the Dynamo challenge was picked up by the strike team for the production of tractor seeders. On her initiative, a report was drawn up to the congress from the 15-thousandth collective of 15 workers . It was the country's first through-line strike brigade. The idea of its creation arose due to the fact that the workers had to complete the task of producing the first seed drills for the opening of the XVI Party Congress. By bringing together workers from different workshops who are closely involved in the seed drill production process, this team helped to organize a friendly, coordinated work of all sites and quickly eliminate problems that hindered the implementation of the plan. The initiative of Rostselmash has become widespread in other enterprises of the country. A new form of social competition - obshchest-

9 Pravda, 7. V. 1930.

10 "Motor", 6. VI. 1930.

11 Pravda, 4. VI. 1930.

12 Pravda, 6. VI. 1930 .

13 "Polyustrovsky giant", 25. VI. 1930.

14 "Motor", 26. VI. 1930.

15 Pravda, 10. VI. 1930.

page 208

emergency towing, providing assistance to laggards-originated at the Artem mine in the days of preparation for the congress. In their report, the miners wrote:: "In response to the" prophecies "of the right-wing opportunists, in a fierce struggle against the remnants of counter-revolutionary Trotskyism, we, the miners of the Artem mine, are carrying out our work to fulfill the economic indicators assigned to us by the party and the Government. By organizing shock brigades and using all means to raise the activity of the broad working masses, we are going out to the XVI Party Congress with a gift to the party and the working class, having exceeded the production target... With the experience of dealing with breakthroughs under our belt, in the spring of this year we extended a hand of friendly assistance to the lagging October Revolution mine, organizing this assistance in the form of a so-called "public tug". The results of the "public tug" did not slow to affect. The tide has turned, and the situation at the October Revolution is improving. " 16 The best workers and specialists were allocated to the lagging mine. Together with the engineers of the "October Revolution", they revealed the reasons for the breakthrough and jointly corrected the situation. In the article "A new Initiative in Socialist Competition," Pravda wrote: "The Artyomovites have made an initiative of great public importance. This initiative should be taken up and transferred to the practice of social competition by other enterprises."

On the eve of the congress, another form of socialist competition emerged - the counter industrial financial plan. This idea appeared among the workers of the Leningrad Karl Marx Plant in April 1930. The administration of the waterworks considered that 3 thousand overtime hours should be spent to fulfill the April program. The drummers of the workshop put forward a counter industrial finance plan - to complete the task without overtime hours and produce 1 car in excess of the program as a gift to the XVI Congress. They kept their word 17 . The initiative was taken up by drummers from other workshops. As a result, the plant fulfilled the program of three quarters of the second year of the five-year plan by 110.4%. Workers of the plant through the newspaper "Pravda" 18 urged to follow their example of blast furnace workers and steelworkers, whose products largely depended on the growth rate of mechanical engineering. This initiative was supported by the country's metallurgists. The initiative of the factory staff was a new valuable contribution to the industrialization of the country, to the active participation of workers in socialist construction.

The pre-congress competition was developing more and more widely both in the city and in the countryside. Industrial enterprises, state and collective farms reported on this to the Congress and the newspaper Pravda. In the first days of the congress, Pravda reported under the heading "The entire proletariat of the Land of Soviets ardently welcomes the Sixteenth" about the glorious victories of the participants of the competition: "The 10 best workshops and factories of Dnepropetrovsk region produced 19,000 tons of pig iron, 350 tons of open-hearth steel, 2000 tons of pipes, wagons and locomotives over the program as a gift to the XVI Congress; "Out of 14,000 Grozny workers, 10,000 are shock workers, we call Baku, Sakhalin, Emba, Ural"; "The 24th powerful vessel was launched ahead of schedule. The Baltics are sending 140 of the best workers to the party by the XVI Congress"; "Let's show the world new, unprecedented rates of work" (from the greeting of 20,000 Dneprostroev residents)19; "The workers of the Northern Region have committed to additional exports to transfer 1 million rubles of foreign currency to the industrialization Fund" 20 . The greeting to the congress from the Leningrad Regional Council of Trade Unions read: "The Leningrad workers welcome the XVI Party Congress with the construction of new workshops and factories, the organization of new shock brigades, the fulfillment and over-fulfillment of the industrial financial plan, and the entry of thousands of new workers into Lenin's party." 21
On the day the Congress began, June 26, 1930, demonstrations and rallies were held in many cities of the country in honor of its opening. A grand demonstration took place in Moscow. Hundreds of thousands of workers took to the streets to welcome the congress. At 6 p.m., demonstrators poured into Sverdlov Square. They walked in an endless line past the Bolshoi Theater, where the congress was meeting. The delegation of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant carried a banner: "Ardent greetings to the XVI Congress", and in front of it moved the first tractor produced by the plant with the inscription " Ilyich's Testament was fulfilled. A gift to the XVI Party Congress". In columns - the first Soviet combine harvester, izgotov-

16 Pravda, 16. VI. 1930.

17 "Tribune", 27. VI. 1930.

18 Pravda, 30. VI. 1930.

19 "Pravda", 26, 27. VI. 1930.

20 Central Museum of the Revolution of the USSR, f. 205, N 16009.

21 Ibid., N 16004.

page 209

produced by the Kommunar plant, 25 trucks that went over the plan as a gift to the congress from the assembly line of the Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant. Demonstrators marched with unfurled banners, scarlet posters, models and samples of products of enterprises. The demonstration in honor of the congress showed the close connection between the party and the people, the boundless trust in it and the boundless support of its workers. About 100 greetings and reports were received from the rostrum of the congress from the workers of Moscow, Leningrad, Baku, Stalingrad, Rostov, Zaporozhye, from the railway workers and miners of the Donbass, from the collective farms of the North Caucasus, Central many factories, factories, state and collective farms. They spoke about the progress of the pre-congress competition, about the fulfillment of socialist obligations in honor of the XVI Party Congress. The full-scale offensive of socialism on the entire front, led by the Communists, was successfully carried out.

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