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[118]
The Seventeenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) was held in Moscow, January 26-February 10, 1934. It discussed the report of the Central Committee, C.P.S.U.(B.), the reports of the Central Auditing Commission, of the Central Control Commission and the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, of the C.P.S.U.(B.) delegation in the Executive Committee of the Comintern, and reports on the Second Five-Year Plan and on organizational questions (Party and Soviet affairs). On Stalin's report on the work of the C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.), the congress adopted a decision in which it wholly approved the political line and practical work of the C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.), and instructed all Party organizations to be guided in their work by the principles and tasks enunciated in Stalin's report. The con-
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gress noted the decisive successes of socialist construction in the U.S.S.R. and declared that the general line of the Party had triumphed. The Seventeenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) has gone down in the history of the Party as the Congress of Victors. On the reports of V. M. Molotov and V. V. Kuibyshev, the congress adopted a resolution on "The Second Pive-Year Plan of Development of the National Economy of the U.S.S.R. (1933-37)" -- a plan for the building of socialist society, thereby endorsing the grand programme for completing the technical reconstruction of the entire national economy, and for a still more rapid rise of the living and cultural standards of the workers and peasants. The congress emphasized that the basic political task during the Second Five-Year Plan period was the final elimination of capitalist elements and the overcoming of the survivals of capitalism in economic life and in the minds of people. On the report of L. M. Kaganovich, the congress adopted decisions on organizational questions (Party and Soviet affairs). The congress pointed out that the principal tasks of the Second Five-Year Plan sharply raised the question of improving the quality of work in all spheres, and first and foremost the quality of organizational and practical leadership. The congress adopted new Party Rules. It replaced the Central Control Commission and the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection by a Party Control Commission under the C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.), and a Soviet Control Commission under the Council of People's Commissars of the U.S.S.R. (For the Seventeenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.), see History of the C.P.S.U.(B), Short Course, FLPH, Moscow, 1954, pp. 496-503. For the resolutions and decisions of the congress, see Resolutions and Decisions of C.P.S.U. Congresses, Conferences and Central Committee Plenums, in Russian, 1953, Part II, pp. 744-87.)
[p.671]
[119] In 1931 the proletariat and peasantry of Spain overthrew the military fascist dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera, which had been set up in 1923, and abolished the monarchy. On April 14, 1931, a republic was proclaimed in Spain. Owing, however, to the political weakness and organizational disunity of the proletariat and the treachery of the leadership of the Socialist Party and Anarchists, the bourgeoisie and landlords were able to seize power, and a coalition government of representatives of the bourgeois parties and the Socialists was formed. In spite of the attempts of the coalition government to hold back the further development of the revolution, the revolutionary mass battles of the workers and peasants against the landlords and the bourgeoisie continued. With the general strike and the armed struggle of the Asturian miners in October 1934 the revolutionary movement of this period reached its peak. [p.672]
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[120] Councils of Action -- revolutionary organizations of workers set up in Britain, France and the other capitalist countries that took part in military intervention against the Soviet Republic in 1918-20. The Councils of Action arose under the slogan of "Hands off Soviet Russia!" Under their leadership, the workers organized strikes and demonstrations, and refused to load war equipment, with the aim of bringing about the collapse of the intervention. The Councils of Action were most wide spread in Britain, in 1920. [p.686]
[121] The Second Congress of the Communist International took place July 19-August 7, 1920. It opened in Petrograd; the subsequent sittings were held in Moscow. It was attended by more than 200 delegates representing working-class organizations from 37 countries. Lenin directed all the preparatory work for convening the congress. At the congress Lenin delivered a report on the international situation and the fundamental tasks of the Communist International, as well as other reports and speeches. Lenin and Stalin were elected by the R.C.P.(B.) delegation to sit on the Executive Committee of the Communist International. The Second Congress laid the foundations of the programme, organizational principles, strategy and tactics of the Communist International. [p.687]
[122] The Little Entente -- a political alliance of Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia lasting from 1920 to 1938. It was under French influence and almost until the end of its existence it had the character of an anti-Soviet bloc. The bourgeois-landlord ruling circles of the countries that composed the Little Entente regarded it as a means of strengthening their hold on the territories they had received under the Versailles Peace Treaty and as a weapon of struggle against revolution in Central Europe. The danger of aggression by German fascism and the growing international prestige of the U.S.S.R. changed the attitude of the countries of the Little Entente to the Soviet Union. In 1933 the countries of the Little Entente, along with other countries, joined with the U.S.S.R. in signing a convention defining aggression, the draft submitted by the Soviet Union being taken as the basis of this convention. [p.689]
[123] See Lenin, "The Tax in Kind," Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2, p. 528. [p.697]
[124] See Lenin, "Report on Work in the Countryside," delivered at the Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.), March 23, 1919. (Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol. 29, p. 190.) [p.714]
[125]
The Fifteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) took place in Moscow, December 2-19, 1927. On December 3, Stalin delivered the political report
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of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.) and on December 7 he replied to the discussion. The congress approved the political and organizational line of the Party's Central Committee and instructed it to continue to pursue a policy of peace and of strengthening the defence capacity of the U.S.S.R., to continue with unrelaxing tempo the socialist industrialization of the country, to develop to the full the collectivization of agriculture and to steer a course towards eliminating the capitalist elements from the national economy. In its decisions on the opposition the congress noted that the disagreements between the Party and the opposition had developed into programmatic disagreements and that the Trotskyite opposition had taken the path of anti-Soviet struggle, and declared that adherence to the Trotskyite opposition and the propagation of its views were incompatible with membership of the Bolshevik Party. The congress approved the decision of the joint meeting of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the C.P.S.U.(B.) of November 14, 1927, to expel Trotsky and Zinoviev from the Party and decided to expel from the Party all active members of the Trotsky-Zinoviev bloc and the whole "Democratic Centralism" group. (For the Fifteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.), see History of the C.P.S.U.(B.), Short Course, FLPH, Moscow, 1954, pp. 447-49. For the resolutions and decisions of the congress, see Resolutions and Decisions ot C.P.S.U. Congresses, Conferences and Central Committee Plenums, in Russian, 19S3, Part II, pp. 313-71)
[p.734]
[126]
The Seventeenth Conference of the C.P.S.U.(B.) took place in Moscow, January 30-February 4, 1932. The conference was directed by Stalin. It discussed G. K. Orjonikidze's report on the results of industrial development in 1931 and the tasks for 1932, and the reports of V. M. Molotov and V. V. Kuibyshev on the directives for drawing up the Second Five-Year Plan for the development of the national economy of the U.S.S.R. in 1933-37. The conference noted that the decisions of the Party congresses on the building and completion of the foundations of a socialist economy and on securing economic independence for the U.S.S.R. had been carried out with immense success. The conference approved the plan for the development of socialist industry in 1932, which ensured the fulfilment of the First Five-Year Plan in four years. In its directives for the drawing up of the Second Five-Year Plan, the conference defined the chief political and economic tasks of that plan, pointing out that its main and decisive economic task was the completion of the reconstruction of the entire national economy on the basis of the most up-to-date technique. (For the resolutions of the Seventeenth Conference of the C.P.S.U.(B.), see
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Resolutions and Decisions of C.P.S.U. Congresses, Conferences and Central Committee Plenums, in Russian, 1953, Part II, pp. 679-99.)
[p.736]
[127] See Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, FLP, Peking, 1973, p. 71. [p.742]
[128] Engels, Anti-Duhring, FLPH, Moscow, 1947, p. 159. [p.742]