8th party congress. The history of China from ancient times to the present day. In the field of military

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On December 22, 1920, the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow - the first Congress of Soviets to meet after the end of the Civil War. A month before its opening, the Red Army defeated the last counter-revolutionary army that threatened Soviet Russia, - Wrangel's army. Only a few months have passed since the end of the war with Poland.

The victorious conclusion of the civil war and the strengthening of Soviet power significantly improved the internal and external position of Soviet Russia. The blockade was broken: some capitalist states concluded peace treaties with Russia, trade negotiations were conducted with others. “How long ago,” said M. I. Kalinin, opening the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets, “when the Western European great-power governments arrogantly treated Soviet Russia, and now these governments are seeking rapprochement with Soviet Russia. Our internal position - this can be boldly and definitely to say - noticeably strengthened" 1 .

But the country was completely ruined.

Seven years of imperialist and civil war led to severe economic ruin. By the end of 1920, all agricultural output amounted to no more than half of the already low pre-war level. The crop failure that took place in many provinces, a sharp reduction in sown areas and livestock, famine in a number of regions of the country - all this led the peasant economy to a severe crisis. Industry was also in a state of decline. The output of large-scale industry was almost seven times less than before the war. Disintegration in transport, a fuel crisis, an acute shortage of industrial goods, the difficult situation of the working class - such were the results of the imperialist war and the years of criminal management by the White Guards and interventionists in certain regions of the country.

The possibility of establishing a lasting peace, of transitioning to peaceful socialist construction, began to be finally determined only towards the end of 1920. Speaking on November 7, 1920 at a solemn meeting of the Baku Soviet, I. V. Stalin said: “Now there is reason to believe that, at least for a short period of time, Soviet Russia will receive a significant respite in order to use all the energy of its tireless workers. .. direct on the path of economic development, put factories, agriculture, food agencies on their feet" 2 .

The Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets outlined the first plan for peaceful construction and gave the first directives for its implementation. This is its historical significance.

The pre-Congress days, like the days of the congress, passed in an atmosphere of great upsurge in the activity of the masses in the country: pre-election meetings were held in factories and villages, congresses of local soviets were held,

1 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 2. M. 1921.

2 I. Stalin. Op. Vol. 4, p. 388.

rallies, conferences, reports were held. The entire Soviet press, both central and local, in preparation for the congress since November 1920 widely discussed various aspects of the life of Soviet Russia.

The attitude of the masses towards the congress is clearly illustrated by the following note, placed in the bulletin of the congress: "Go to the county town" and any meeting, hang around in the Party and non-Party masses, "and after complaints about red tape and disorder, you can hear:" Here the Congress of Soviets will set things right and correct shortcomings, now the ruin is over... So much is connected with the congress, so great are the hopes of the provinces for its creative forces" 3 .

A deep understanding of the historical significance of the congress found expression in the widespread desire of the broad masses of working people to take an active part in its work. One of the striking examples of this desire was the following appeal of the Naumov volost organization of the RCP (b) and the Naumov volost executive committee to the leading party bodies of Bashkiria. “We express our ardent desire to be at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets from our little developed rural cell of the RCP (b) ... We ask that our Party member be given the opportunity to hear the voice of the All-Russian Entry in person, at least once. We send our devoted communist ... if not with a decisive, then at least with an advisory vote, or as guests. We consider it of great importance to get acquainted with the opinion of the congress, and this will also be a guide for us and our closest comrades "4.

The deep ties between the congress and the masses found expression in the most active participation of the working people in the preparation and determination of the questions which the congress was to decide. At meetings throughout the country during November and December, workers', peasants', and Red Army meetings discussed the agenda of the congress, and worked out orders relating to the immediate tasks facing the country in connection with the transition from war to peace. The Red Army soldiers of the 52nd Infantry Division, who stormed Perekop in November, when discussing the agenda of the congress, proposed to their delegate to defend the following provisions at the congress: "Restore transport, industry and coal mining, help the peasants to raise agricultural production, ensure the strengthening and preservation of the combat capability of the Red Army" 5. The soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division, addressing the congress, expressed their confidence that it would "affirm the land use law, establish a single economic apparatus of the republic, outline a plan for raising industry and recreating transport" 6 .

Many organizations and individuals sent projects that, in their opinion, should have helped in the development of measures to eliminate the devastation in the country and in the construction of communism. The broad expression of the will of the masses was taken into account both in determining the tasks that were to be solved and discussed at the congress, and in the decisions adopted by the congress.

The internal and international situation that developed at the end of 1920 determined the nature of the congress agenda and the style of its work. The congress was held in a purely businesslike atmosphere. The agenda included the following reports and reports: a report by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on foreign and domestic policy, a report on the state of industry and measures for its restoration, on the electrification of Russia, on agriculture.

3 Bulletin of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets N 3, 1920.

4 Central State Archive of the October Revolution (TsGAOR), f. 1235, op. 11, d. 54, l. 85. The request of the Naumovites was granted: their representative went to the congress as a guest.

5 Ibid., d. 3, l. 194.

6 Ibid., d. 6, l. 44.

about transport, about improving the work of Soviet organs and about fighting bureaucracy, about reducing the army, about establishing the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

At the congress, "greetings of the Red Army and the Red Navy and appeals were announced and adopted: to the workers of the railway and water transport; to all the working people of Russia; to all citizens of the RSFSR languishing in captivity and interned in camps; to the French proletariat, in connection with the death of the best his wrestlers: Raymond Lefebvre, Lepeti and Verger.

After a special report, the congress approved the union treaty between the RSFSR and Soviet Ukraine. A special decision was made on the issue of involving women in economic construction 7 . At the end of the congress, a new composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the 8th convocation was elected.

What was new in the work of the Eighth Congress, compared with previous congresses, was noted in the congress bulletin with the following words: “These were congresses of a fighting moment. The center played the main role in them. They listened to extensive reports ... and adopted decisions almost immediately, without much discussion, unanimously ... It is understandable: everyone understood - Krasnov, Kaledin, Denikin at the gate. The Congress must work in a military way. New (VIII. - E.P.) the congress embodies the beginning of a new era - the masses' close reflection on the construction of their Soviet communist home ... the laboring masses in the person of their deputies in Moscow ... reflect, discuss about their great all-Russian labor economy "8.

The VIII All-Russian Congress differed from the congress of the war years in that delegates from all areas of the Soviet country liberated from the White Guards and interventionists had the opportunity to take part in its work. Opening the congress, MI Kalinin said: "We can see in this hall today ... representatives of the most honest citizens of all our vast Russia." Here, he said, for the first time there are representatives of the far north, "the Don Cossacks, the northern Caucasus, the Kuban and the Crimea just liberated from the White Guard yoke", representatives of the new fraternal republics - Azerbaijan and Armenia 10 . The congress was attended by Russians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Latvians, Jews, Poles, Tatars, Belarusians, Armenians, Kirghiz, Tajiks, Bashkirs, Uzbeks and representatives of other nationalities of the Soviet state.

The VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets was more numerous than any of the previous congresses of Soviets that took place after October 1917: it was attended by 1685 delegates with a decisive and 805 with an advisory vote 11 .

The congress brought together the best people of the country, who had come forward from the very midst of the masses. They were mostly young, energetic people who had grown up and strengthened during the harsh years of the revolution and civil war. 16 delegates (0.7%) were under the age of 20, 1058 (42.5%) were between 20 and 30, 1099 (44.2%) were between 30 and 40 and 261 (10.6%) - 41 people, or 1.6%, were present at the age of 40 to 50, over the age of 50. 94.4% of the delegates were communists and sympathizers. Only 8 Bundists, 8 Mensheviks, 2 "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, 1 anarchist-communist and 1 anarchist-universalist were present at the congress from other parties.

7th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, pp. 263 - 267.

8 Bulletin of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets N 4 for 1920.

9 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 1.

11 Ibid., p. 291.

12 However, these few representatives from other parties were not elected delegates to the congress, but ended up at its meetings after long and annoying harassment. Thus, the Central Bureau of the Minority Party of S. -R. applied to the Presidium of the CEC

The work of the congress was held under the leadership of the Lenin-Stalin party. All the most important questions were worked out and proposed to the Congress on behalf of the Party. All the most important reports were previously discussed in detail at the Bolshevik faction, which met regularly throughout the entire work of the congress. The Bolshevik faction discussed and adopted decisions on following questions: on development measures and assistance to agriculture; NCPC report; union treaty with Ukraine; an appeal to all the working people of Russia; approval of the list of candidates for the All-Russian Central Executive Committee; a report on the changes made to the draft decisions; report of the food section; report of the fuel commission and report on the work of the commission for drawing up lists of candidates for members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee 13 .

The issues considered by the congress are divided into two clearly defined groups: summing up the results of the ended period of the civil war and developing measures to restore the national economy and transfer the state and economic apparatuses to a peaceful track.

In his report, V. I. Lenin summed up the results of the civil war and gave an analysis of the internal and international situation in Russia by the end of 1920, outlining a grandiose plan for switching the country to a peaceful footing. Lenin outlined a plan for the restoration and further development industry, transport, agriculture, defined the tasks of restructuring and strengthening the economic and Soviet apparatuses 14 . The congress delegates unanimously adopted the following resolution on Lenin's report: "Having heard and discussed the report of the Workers' and Peasants' Government, the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets fully approves the activity of its government."

Summing up the results of the ended period of the civil war, the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets in its address "To all the working people of Russia" wrote: the congress "considers it its duty to pay gratitude for the merits of all who, with their sweat and blood, hard work and patience, courage and self-sacrifice for the common cause contributed to victory... Comrade workers!The three years of the Revolution were times of greatest suffering and need for you... By preparing arms and clothes for the Red Front, giving everything for it, you ensured victory... Toilers of the earth, comrade peasants! the army could not have won, the workers of the cities would have died of starvation, industry would have died out in the country, if your surplus grain had not been transferred to the workers' and peasants' state ... The working peasantry did its duty." The appeal ended with an appeal: "Three or four more years and there will be no undressed and undressed in the republic. Five more years, and we will finally heal the wounds inflicted by the war on our economy. To work, Workers 'and Peasants' Russia!" 16 .

with a special letter: "At the forthcoming VIII Congress of Soviets, we ask five representatives of the Central Bureau of the Minority of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party to grant the right of an advisory vote" (TsGAOR, f. 1235, op. 11, file 62, fol. 46). On the basis of similar repeated harassment, the Central Committee of the Bund (ibid., fol. 48) and the Central Committee of the Mensheviks (ibid., fol. 58) won seats at the congress. Once at the congress, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries tried to launch anti-Soviet agitation. They bombarded the congress with declarations, anti-Soviet draft resolutions, statements and protests. But the congress delegates greeted all these tricks of the Danes and Volsky with indignation and ridicule. “Volsky, where is Kolchak?” they angrily shouted to the Socialist-Revolutionary Volsky during his speech, recalling the connection between the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Kolchak. A sharp rebuke to the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks was given by Lenin in his concluding speech,

13 TsGAOR, f. 1235, op. 11, d. 45, ll. 20, 60, 66, 67, 75, 80, 81, 85.

14 See Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, pp. 24 - 48. Ed. 3rd.

15th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, p. 263.

16 Ibid., pp. 264-265.

The congress accepted the greetings of the Red Army and the Red Navy: "In the very first minutes of its work, the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets ... sends its enthusiastic fraternal greetings to the revolutionary Red Army for its courage, perseverance and will to win, unprecedented in the world, for great sacrifices" 17 . The congress called on the Red Army soldiers "to a united, no less heroic, joint struggle of all on the labor front to organize a new victory over devastation and famine" 18 .

The congress approved the government's report on the reduction of the army and navy - an act that marked the organizational measures for the transition to peaceful construction. The message indicated that, based on the actual conditions of transport and the required number of armed forces For a sound defense of the republic, the Council of Labor and Defense expects, by beginning the demobilization of the older ages, to reduce the army approximately by half by the middle of 1921. However, having begun to reduce the army, the government at the same time considers it necessary, it was written in a message approved by the congress, "to take all measures to ensure that the Red Army is fully provided with all the material means necessary for its existence, training and education, and that its military training and political education were carried out with the necessary energy and without hindrance" 20 . Regarding the issues of demobilization, Lenin in his report to the congress noted: “We must, by all means, maintain our Red Army in all combat readiness and strengthen its combat capability. This, of course, will not be hindered by the release of a certain part of the army and its rapid demobilization " 21 .

Summing up the results of the ended battles, the congress took up the issues of restoring the national economy. In his speeches at the congress, V. I. Lenin emphasized with particular insistence that economic problems, "the economic front is now being advanced before us again and again, as the most important and as the main one."

A clear definition of the tasks of the party and the entire Soviet people in the new post-war conditions was given somewhat later by I. V. Stalin in his speech at the general meeting of the Tiflis organization of communists, June 6, 1921. If during the war years, said I. V. Stalin, the Soviet republics acted under the general slogan "everything for the war", then "now, when we have entered a new period of economic construction, when we have switched from war to peaceful work, the old slogan "everything for the war" is naturally replaced by the new slogan "everything for the national economy." This new period, - continued J. V. Stalin, - obliges the communists to throw all their forces on the economic front, in industry, agriculture, food business, in the transport business, etc. For without this there is no way to overcome the economic devastation" 23 .

The main decisive Even, which determined the rise of all branches of the national economy, was the restoration and development of the destroyed agriculture of the country. Lenin paid great attention to this issue in his report on December 22, and also devoted to it

17 Ibid., p. 263.

19 Ibid., p. 284. By order of the Revolutionary Military Council, on December 11, 1920, the demobilization of all Red Army soldiers before the birth of 1885 began. The next three ages are 1886 - 1888. births, the dismissal of which was carried out in the second place, formed a labor army before their demobilization. During the period of demobilization of the Red Army soldiers of the second stage, the following three ages were enrolled in the labor army. In this order, by the spring or summer of 1921, it was supposed to complete the dismissal on indefinite leave of all Red Army soldiers until 1896 born.

20 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 285.

21 Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, p. 26.

22 Ibid., p. 31.

23 I. Stalin. Op. Vol. 5, p. 89.

special speech at the Bolshevik faction on 24 December. Particular difficulties in the revival of agriculture were caused not only by the fact that its level had fallen extremely low, but also by the fact that the work to restore agriculture had to be carried out through the many millions of petty-bourgeois and scattered masses of the individual peasantry. And the rise of the country's industry was completely impossible without the restoration of its agrarian base: "Without the practical mass improvement of the economy of the small peasantry, there is no salvation for us: without this base, no economic construction is possible, and any great plans are nothing," emphasized V. And Lenin at the Eighth All - Russian Congress of Soviets 24 . Lenin's assessment of the state of the peasant economy and the paths he outlined for its development found a deep response among the peasantry. Thus, one of the peasants of the Ryazan province wrote about his impressions of Lenin’s speech at the congress: “As a non-party member, Comrade Lenin’s speech satisfies me especially because Comrade Lenin, although he himself is not a peasant, understands the soul of peasant construction, and that in this respect it is in no way at odds with my peasant understanding.

The congress adopted the law "On Measures for the Strengthening and Development of Peasant Agriculture", previously published on December 14, 1920. By creating this bill, the party and the government took the path of developing specific measures to increase productivity and expand sown areas. The law, designed to prepare and conduct the sowing campaign of 1921, proceeded from the fact that, if successful, the planned measures in accordance with the experience gained would be applied in the future.

Speaking at the congress against the projectors who put forward declarative, broadcast projects either for the immediate building of socialism in the countryside through state farms or for the immediate collectivization of agriculture, Lenin pointed out that in the specific conditions of 1920-1921. in the matter of restoring agriculture, one must rely on the individual peasant: “He is like that and will not be different in the near future ... From general reasoning, we must move on to how to take the first and practical step without fail this spring and in no case later, and only such a formulation of the question will be business-like" 26 .

The main idea in the development of the law "On measures to strengthen and develop peasant agriculture" was the idea of ​​transferring the methods of state regulation from the field of industrial production to the field of small-scale peasant farming. If during the years of the Civil War the state could regulate only the procurement of agricultural products through the surplus appropriation, then it approached the regulation of agricultural production, setting specific tasks for agriculture: to cultivate and sow certain sown areas; carry out minimum agronomic activities; ensure a certain yield. In turn, the state assumed a number of obligations to organize assistance to the peasantry in carrying out the sowing campaign: "Recognizing agriculture as the most important branch of the economy of the Republic, imposing on all organs of Soviet power the duty of enhanced comprehensive assistance to peasant agriculture, the worker-peasant government announces at the same time, the correct conduct of agricultural economy is the great state duty of the peasant population" 27 .

Undertaking to render assistance to the peasant economy with living and dead inventory, the establishment of repair shops, rental and

24 Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, p. 38.

25 TsGAOR, f. 1235, op. II, d. 3, l. 229.

26 Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, p. 55.

27 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 267.

grain cleaning stations, seed materials, fertilizers, instructions from agronomists, etc., the state at the same time demanded from all peasants the complete sowing of fields on the instructions of the state and their correct cultivation, following the example of the most diligent farms of the poor and middle peasants. Thus, for the first time, the task of regulating the individual peasant economy by the state was posed; for the first time, the state took into its own hands the provision of production assistance to the peasantry.

Assessing the bill and the tasks of the congress in the field of raising agriculture, M. I. Kalinin wrote in the article "Tasks of the Eighth Congress" that the congress raised a new question, never before raised, "this is the development of agricultural production and assistance to the peasant economy. This is of great importance a step that expresses the intention of the Soviet government to approach the peasantry with economic measures as soon as possible.In this sense, the congress faces one of the most difficult tasks - to be able to find those forms of approach of the Soviet government to the peasant economy that would make it possible to raise it to such height, so that the state can give it certain production tasks and so that the measures outlined by the congress are not only useful to the state, but also beneficial to the peasant economy.

The exceptional importance of the restoration of agriculture for the entire economy of the country required the speedy adoption and implementation of the law "On measures to strengthen and develop peasant agriculture." “We tried in S.N.K.,” V.I. Lenin said at the congress, “as soon as possible to give this bill the most prepared forms so that the Congress of Soviets ... has time to make a final decision. We are in danger of being late to carry out this campaign on the spot " thirty .

After the draft law was heard at the plenary session of the congress, it was discussed in detail and in detail at the special land section at the evening session on December 25. Up to 60 people signed up for the debate, the whole discussion took place with a lot of activity of the participants. For a specific revision of sections of the law, taking into account local characteristics, the section, but at the suggestion of Lenin, was divided into 11 commissions, in accordance with the agricultural economic regions of the country. These commissions included local workers from the districts. To coordinate the proposals of the commission, the conciliation commission worked all day on December 26, which achieved complete unanimity on all points of the project, except for the question of the bonus system for individual farms and agricultural collectives. On December 27, the question of the law was discussed at the Bolshevik faction, to the meeting of which non-party peasants were invited - delegates to the congress. Thus, only after a long discussion, the law was finally adopted by the VIII Congress.

What are the main provisions of the law "On Measures for the Strengthening and Development of Peasant Agriculture"? In his speeches at the congress, Lenin called for concentrating all efforts on the most urgent: on gathering required amount seeds; on avoiding undersowing; that the improvement of agricultural production assume a mass character, for the better the whole machine for the advancement of agriculture is put in place, the more success the country as a whole will achieve. "If we swing wider than we can

28 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 267.

29 Bulletin of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets N 1. 1920.

30 Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, p. 53.

we will only compromise ourselves in the eyes of the peasants,” Lenin warned.

In order to carry out all these tasks and with a view to maximum assistance to the peasant economy, as well as to proper guidance During the entire agricultural campaign in the villages, provinces and volosts, it was planned to create sowing committees consisting of no more than five persons. These sowing committees were obliged to act through the apparatus of the land departments, without creating their own technical apparatus 32 . Under the sowing commissions, it was necessary to create agricultural councils, which included rural specialists and representatives of the peasantry. These councils were advisory organizations that determined the technical feasibility and the possibility of implementing the measures planned by the sowing committees. “In order to develop the masses of the working peasantry to the greatest extent possible,” the law wrote, “in the work to strengthen and develop agriculture, to form, under the village councils, under the chairmanship of the chairman of the village council, peasant committees for the improvement of agricultural production, elected by rural societies” 33. The creation of the village committees was aimed at the broad involvement of the peasant masses in the organization of the rise of agriculture.

The creation of these special bodies was caused by the desire to rely on the broad peasant masses in this important work.

Thus, at the end of the civil war, in the conditions of the transition to peaceful construction, the Soviet state attracted the working people to the organization and management of production not only in industry, but also in agriculture. At the same time, the creation of sowing committees was a special, exceptionally important measure, characteristic of the period of transition from civil war to peaceful construction under the special conditions of 1920-1921. It combined the methods of war communism - methods of non-economic influence - with the search for ways to create a personal interest of the peasants in the development of agriculture and to provide initiative, both to local Soviet authorities and to the broad working masses of the peasantry.

It is important to note that the idea of ​​forming sowing committees was put forward and widely supported by local workers and organizations. For example, in a letter to the Urzhum congress delegate from the Urzhum party organization it was written: "A particularly important and serious question will be raised about assistance committees" 34 . And in the theses, approved by the Urzhum party meeting, it was noted: "In order to involve the general population in the work, create committees of assistance ... in the tasks that set the implementation of the state plan for sowing fields" 35 .

The sowing committees were charged with organizing extensive assistance to the peasant economy. They had to put in an exemplary order all the institutions that provided the peasants with technical and organizational assistance: repair shops, rental centers, mills, etc. They had to organize and correct use improved agricultural equipment (mowers, reapers) and the transfer of Labor Army and Red Army units to the sowing and harvesting campaigns. They were also charged with broad agricultural propaganda 36 .

The congress instructed the Council of People's Commissars to give instructions to all economic people's commissariats and departments on the organization of assistance to agriculture. VSNKh

31 Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, p. 55.

32 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, p. 267.

33 Ibid., p. 268.

34 TsGAOR, f. 1235, op. 11, d. 73, l. 110.

35 Ibid., l. 109.

36 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, p. 268.

was supposed to take up the development of agricultural engineering, the production of fertilizers. Foreign Trade was entrusted with the purchase of varietal seeds and breeding stock abroad; People's Commissariat for Naval Affairs - the transfer of army units to help agriculture, etc. 37 .

Thus, in the very first paragraphs of the law, the state assumed a number of obligations in assisting the peasant economy, both with inventory and with labor, in the amount to which this was possible in the conditions of the devastation of 1920-1921. At the same time, as already mentioned, the state took over the management of the sowing campaign. Now the determination of the size of the area for sowing and the nature of sowing ceased to be the business of individual peasants. "In order to support the measures of state power," the law wrote, "the aspirations of the best farmers to expand the area of ​​sowing, to declare the seeding of the area of ​​land established by the state sowing plan a state duty" 38 .

At the first stage of the transition to peaceful work, the state carried out a number of other measures using the methods of war communism. Sowing by the peasants of their field was declared a "state duty" on a par with the duty of horse-drawn and labor. Military-communist principles were also taken as the basis for determining the nature of those crops that each peasant must sow. Through the system of sowing committees and village committees, the state obliged each peasant to sow certain agricultural crops.

For the first time, the state approached the adoption of the principle of planning sown areas and determining the nature of crops, entrusting the drawing up of all-Russian plans for the sowing campaign to the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, and locally to local sowing committees. Much attention was paid to the provision of sown areas with a seed fund; The state was faced with the task of preserving the seed fund at all costs. Due to the famine, there was a danger that the seed fund would be eaten. And V. I. Lenin, warning against this, said: "Our goal is to take the amount of seeds necessary for complete seeding under the protection of the state" 39 .

The preservation of the seed funds in the hands of the peasants became the business of the state, which ensured the preservation of these seeds together with the peasants. "Declare the stocks of seeds held by farmers," the law established in paragraph 9, "in the amount required for the economy, as an inviolable seed fund, and take measures to protect the seed fund and distribute seeds within the province" 40 . The law outlined a number of measures for the preservation of seeds, such as: handing over to public barns in the bags of the owners and with their mark, declaring the seeds held by private owners inviolable, subject to their personal responsibility for the preservation of the seed fund. It is interesting to note that a number of statutory measures for the protection of seeds were a generalization of experience already available on the ground. Thus, one of the congress delegates, a peasant from Kursk, said on the sidelines of the congress: “We have settled down in a good way, the Lord has managed, we have allocated a barn, and let's carry seeds into it ... then a barn for two locks with a seal, we have one key , the executive committee has another one, they can't get there without us, and we won't be able to" 41 .

Describing the connection between the law and established practice, Lenin said that the law proceeds from local experience, and in the localities this

37 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, p. 269.

39 Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, p. 54.

40 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 269.

41 Bulletin of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets N 5. M. 1920.

have already felt 42 . In developing and approving the draft law, the congress did not confine itself to establishing state leadership in the sowing of fields and the preservation of seeds. He made a decision on the need for state regulation of agricultural production technology, instructing the sowing committees under the guidance and control of: the People's Commissariat of Agriculture to develop mandatory rules for the basic methods of cultivating fields and improving meadows, as well as sowing methods and methods for maintaining soil fertility 43 .

Thus, the Soviet state came close to the issue of improving the methods of cultivating the land, to the issue of transferring best practices for the entire multimillion-dollar peasant economy. At the same time, the Soviet state not only set itself the task of restoring the pre-war level of agriculture, but also took the first steps in the field of transferring it to new, advanced methods of agricultural technology. It is clear that during the period of the existence of a small individual peasant economy, the reconstruction of agriculture could not be carried out in full, but nevertheless, the Soviet state began to take the first steps in this area already in 1921, immediately after the end of the civil war.

Especially great debate at the congress was caused by the section of the bill on the system of bonuses for the best achievements in agriculture. The principles and ideas of war communism were still strong, but it became more and more clear that in the conditions of peaceful work it was necessary to find new methods of economic influence on the peasantry. The section on rewarding collectives and individual farms for good progress in the development of agriculture was the first, albeit timid, attempt to find these new methods in the context of maintaining the surplus appropriation. The idea of ​​introducing economic measures to stimulate the development of agriculture has found wide support among the working people. In one of the letters addressed to the congress, a senior worker of railway siding N 20 of the Kaluga province wrote that, having read the newspaper "Poor" for December 28, 1920, and learned from it that "the bill provides for a number of incentive measures in the form of bonuses, as entire societies, and individual householders for this or that success in the economy, I am deeply touched, since the bonuses will raise the productivity in the country" 44 . Similar opinions can be found in other letters addressed to the congress and in a number of peasant responses published in the Soviet press.

The stormy debate at the meetings of the land section and the Bolshevik faction was caused not by the controversial question of the principle admissibility of bonuses, but by the question of whether bonuses are permissible not only for collectives, but also for individual peasant farms. Opponents of individual bonuses believed that bonuses would only go to the kulaks, since only they would be able to achieve noticeable results. With collective bonuses, they said, the peasants within their collective would pull each other up. Supporters of individual bonuses argued that the masses of peasants had not yet been imbued with communist principles, and under conditions of individual farming, collective bonuses would not be a sufficient incentive for the rise and development of peasant economy. As a result of the debate, the congress came to the conclusion about the need for bonuses, both for entire collectives and for individual farms. But the congress placed bonuses on individual peasant farms in the background.

42 See Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, p. 36.

43 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, p. 270.

44 TsGAOR, f. 1235, op. 11, d. 73. l. 179.

45 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, p. 271.

The measures worked out by the Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, however, could not ensure a broad rise in agriculture, since, while maintaining the surplus appropriation, they did not change the economic policy of war communism in relation to the peasantry. These measures were able to play and later played a significant role in the general system of measures of the Soviet state in the restoration and development of agriculture only in the conditions of the new economic policy and the implementation of Lenin's decree on the tax in kind.

The most important section of the work of the congress was the question of the restoration of industry. The October Revolution and the transfer of all the main means of production into the hands of the proletarian state created socialist relations of production in the nationalized industry, providing the political and economic basis for the establishment of socialist relations of production in the entire national economy of the country. But that was only one side of the issue. The tasks of building socialism required raising to a higher level the mode of production of material goods and the development of the productive forces. The efforts of the Soviet state were aimed at restoring the country's productive forces, for their further flourishing in order to create an economic foundation for building socialism.

After a serious and comprehensive discussion of the issue, the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets came to the conclusion that the central task of the next period should be the restoration of transport, the fuel industry and metallurgy. The task of restoring transport - in view of its catastrophic state, which led to a weakening of the country's defense capability - the Soviet government paid attention to during the civil war. As a result of energetic measures, the further collapse of transport in 1920 was halted. But, starting from the end of this year to restore the national economy, the country again faced the need to radically improve the operation of transport. The VIII Congress of Soviets discussed and outlined urgent measures for the restoration of railways and waterways.

In the field of industry, the congress faced the task of not only restoring its pre-war level, but also creating a new, advanced technical base for the country. Electrification, mechanization of the national economy - these are the tasks put forward by the congress.

The Congress also singled out those branches of industry that needed to be restored in the first place: “In view of the enormous importance of the coal industry and heavy industry for the restoration of the entire economy of the Republic,” it was noted in its decision “On Heavy Industry,” the 8th Congress considers it necessary to concentrate all bodies of the Republic to increase the extraction of coal and ores to provide industry with fuel and metal. The coal and metallurgical industries of Siberia, the Urals, the Moscow region and Donetsk regions should be placed in especially favorable conditions for the development of their productive forces "46.

The decision on the Urals and Donbass is not limited to the establishment of common tasks for raising and restoring coal mines and launching small and large metallurgical plants. The congress developed a specific plan for coal mining and metal production for 1921, obliging the Supreme Council of National Economy to

46 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, p. 272.

take all measures to increase coal production in the Donetsk region to at least 600 million poods and pig iron to 25 million poods.

The congress instructed the implementation of a broad electrification of the Donbass and the Urals and the transition from horse-drawn transport to electrified railways, to the extensive development of mine and factory tracks. Raising the question of the development of the fuel industry, the congress obliged to pay special attention to the development of extraction and distillation liquid types fuel and put forward the task rapid development and the restoration not only of the old oil regions of Baku and Grozny, but also the rapid development of new regions, especially Emba 49 , and the development of extensive plans for the construction of oil pipelines. Thus, immediately after the end of the civil war, the Soviet state, along with the restoration of the national economy, set the task of reconstructing industry on the basis of the most advanced technology. The discussion and adoption by the congress of the GOELRO plan, one of the most important documents of the era, served the same purpose. "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country," 50 Lenin pointed out in his report to the congress. Emphasizing the exceptional significance of the plan developed by the GOELRO commission, Lenin said: "In my opinion, this is our second party program" 51 . Developing this idea, Lenin said: "Only when the country is electrified, when the technical base of modern large-scale industry is placed under industry, agriculture and transport, only then will we finally win."

G. M. Krzhizhanovsky made a report on the plan for the electrification of Soviet Russia at the congress. On the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, in front of the delegates of the VIII Congress, a large map of Soviet Russia was hung out with points of planned power plants and ringing schemes for areas plotted on it. The entire map was electrified and gave an accurate idea of ​​the country's electrification plan. G. M. Krzhizhanovsky unfolded before the audience a specific plan for the electrification of the country developed by the GOELRO commission: where, when and what power plants will be built, on what fuel, how the ringing will go, etc. At the same time, the speaker showed the congress that the electrification plan includes a program for the re-equipment and reconstruction of all industry and the entire national economy on the basis of advanced modern technology. “We find an opportunity,” said G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, “in about ten years not only to heal the wounds of wars, but also to raise our productive forces during this period by 80-100% above the pre-war level” 54 .

47 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 272. The need for the speedy restoration of the fuel industry and metallurgy as the most important condition for further socialist construction was written to the congress from all parts of the country. The theses of the Saratov GSNKh, widely discussed in the Saratov party organizations, pointed out the need for the speedy development of the mining industry, as well as the need to raise the "Donetsk basin, the Ural metallurgy, the Caucasian and Emba oil" (TsGAOR, f. 1235, op. 11, d. 54, sheet 2). The same thoughts ran like a red thread through the theses of a non-Party author sent to the congress, "wholly devoted to the communist way of life" (ibid., fol. 20); an order to the Red Army delegate from the 10th division (ibid., d. 3, l. 124); greetings addressed to the congress from the Women's Conference of Working Women and Peasants, Putilovskaya cavity (ibid., d. 6, l. 24) and a large number of orders, greetings, resolutions of various conferences of working people.

48 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, p. 273.

49 See ibid., p. 112.

50 Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, p. 46.

51 Ibid., p. 45.

52 Ibid., p. 47.

53 Bulletin of the VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets N 2. M. 1920.

54 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, pp. 79 - 80.

The delegates, who came from the devastated regions of the country to cold and starving Moscow, listened with great attention to the report, which unfolded bright prospects for the near future before them. The congress approved the electrification plan and in a special decision indicated that it evaluated this plan "as the first step in a great economic undertaking." He instructed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council of People's Commissars and the relevant people's commissariats to complete the development of the electrification plan and approve it, "and without fail as soon as possible" 55 .

Put forward by the party of Lenin-Stalin and approved by the Eighth Congress, the plan for the electrification of the country found wide support and understanding among the workers and peasants. Workers and peasants enthusiastically welcomed the electrification plan. In the press of those years, one can find dozens of responses to the adoption of this plan by the congress.

Of course, at the end of 1920, the state could not fully begin to implement the plan for the electrification of the entire country. The GOELRO plan was put forward as a prospect that revealed to the broad masses the inexhaustible possibilities of the socialist development of the Soviet state, which replaced the old, capitalist Russia.

Adopted by the VIII Congress of Soviets, the GOELRO plan was the first national economic plan that linked the Soviet economy into a single whole. Designed for a number of years, it was called upon not only to ensure the restoration of the national economy, but also to ensure the construction of the economic foundation of socialism. Assessing the significance of the “Plan for the Electrification of Russia” adopted by the congress and published, J. V. Stalin wrote to V. I. Lenin in March 1921: “An excellent, well-written book. our time is a Marxist attempt to bring under the Soviet superstructure of economically backward Russia a really real and the only possible technical and production base under present conditions" 56 .

In discussing the measures to be taken for the speedy upswing of industry, the congress also paid attention to two most important tasks—the problem of labor and the problem of technology. The civil war, mobilization, lack of food in the cities led to a sharp reduction in the skilled workforce at the enterprises. The fulfillment of the decisions of the congress on the restoration and rise of industry was impossible without the provision of enterprises with skilled workers. In order to attract skilled workers and specialists to the industry, the congress outlined a number of urgent measures, but to improve the material situation of the workers, for the immediate return to the enterprises of workers released from the army. The congress paid special attention to the need to expand vocational education.

With the shift of the center of gravity from military questions to problems of economic construction, the establishment by the Congress of a special labor order is connected. The decision of the VIII Congress on the establishment of the Order of the Red Banner of Labor stated that "in order to distinguish before the entire Republic of Soviets those groups of workers and individual citizens who have shown special dedication, initiative, diligence and organization in solving economic problems, the 8th Congress of Soviets decides to establish "Order of the Red Banner of Labor" and its sign" 57 . The establishment of the labor order emphasized the great

55 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 271.

56 I. Stalin. Op. Vol. 5, p. 50.

57 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 276.

the importance attached by the party and the government to constructive economic work.

The new national economic tasks demanded fundamental changes in the entire system of managing the national economy. The Eighth Congress adopted a number of decisions aimed at improving and restructuring the system of managing the national economy in accordance with peaceful working conditions.

During the difficult years of the civil war, a military-communist management system was established in the national economy, built on the principles of strict centralization of management and distribution of raw materials and finished products. The initiative of local authorities, the initiative of the enterprises themselves was reduced to almost zero. The determination of the nature of production, the distribution of raw materials and finished products, the solution of individual economic and production problems - all this was carried out in a strictly centralized manner. There was almost no monetary system of payment, there was no cost accounting. Such a military-communist system of production and leadership during the war played a positive role, but was completely unsuitable for the purposes of peaceful reconstruction work. With such management of industrial enterprises, the initiative of local workers and the economic interest of local institutions were limited. This system ultimately led to the manifestation of bureaucracy and red tape in all parts of the economic apparatus.

Having rebuffed the ultra-decentralization proposals, which had in mind the elimination of centralized administration altogether, the congress outlined a more flexible system of administration. Questions were raised about the need for a radical improvement in the management of the country's economic life, about improving the apparatus of the Supreme Council of National Economy, eliminating parallelism in its work, and about fighting bureaucracy and red tape. Deciding to strengthen the link between the central and local economic bodies, the congress at the same time set the task of finding such forms of economic leadership that would serve to develop the self-activity and initiative of local economic bodies. It was necessary to ensure, stressed at the congress, the development of "self-activity, initiative ... of local bodies", while at the same time ensuring the improvement of their apparatus.

In essence, during the years of war communism, all the work of local economic bodies - communist labor, food committees, land departments, local economic councils, etc. - was fragmented. Each of these bodies was subordinate to a higher one and had little connection with other local economic bodies. All this led to the absence of a single, coordinated economic life in the localities.

In order to unite and strengthen the economic activity of the entire local economic apparatus of the Soviet government and to involve it in the implementation of both local and national tasks, the VIII Congress decided to create provincial economic meetings under the gubernia executive committees as their commissions. The duties of these conferences included coordinating and directing all the work of local bodies of economic people's commissariats: the Supreme Economic Council, the People's Commissariat for Economic Affairs, the People's Commissariat of Finance, etc. In a special instruction, the congress proposed that the STO develop measures for the creation of regional economic bodies and "develop regulations on provincial and district economic meetings" 59 .

However, the decisions of the congress in the field of developing local economic life did not yet fully ensure the tasks set.

58 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 117.

59 Ibid., p. 282.

since the basic principles of the management of the national economy remained the principles of war communism. In the future, it was only the transition to the New Economic Policy that made it possible to fully expand economic life in the localities.

The Eighth Congress also took the first steps towards the restoration of local and handicraft industries. Small and medium-sized enterprises were separated from the total mass of plants and factories subordinate to the Supreme Council of National Economy, and their management was decentralized. In the decision "On local bodies of economic management," the congress instructed the formation of a special commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which was instructed to complete within two months the compilation of lists of large enterprises remaining under the jurisdiction of the central bodies of the state, and a list of medium and small enterprises passing under the jurisdiction of local economic bodies. At the same time, the transfer of medium and small enterprises to the Gubernia Councils of National Economy was to be completed.

The congress also took the first steps towards revising the supply system adopted during the war years. In its decision "On Local Economic Management Bodies," the congress proposed that the Supreme Economic Council "take measures to decentralize the auxiliary supply of enterprises ... of all three groups with ancillary materials, while maintaining the unity of the national supply plan" 61 , and by a special decision "On Local Supply Funds" 62 granted the right to create their own funds to supply their enterprises and institutions.

The transition of the country's life from military to peaceful, the first plans for the restoration of the national economy and the first steps towards restructuring the system of management of the national economy made it necessary to revise the system of work of the country's highest economic bodies. It became necessary to unite the various people's commissariats and all economic organizations of the country more closely. A special commission was set up to work on this issue even before the congress.

V. I. Lenin proposed that the congress entrust the coordination and coordination of the work of all economic agencies of the state, as well as the drawing up of a single nationwide national economic plan, to the Council of Labor and Defense, since, Lenin said, "all plans for individual branches of production must be strictly coordinated, linked and together draw up that unified economic plan, which we so much need" 63 . In accordance with Lenin's instructions, the congress, in its decision "On the Council of Labor and Defense," 64 clarified and defined the functions of the STO, created during the Civil War as the Council of Defense, and in April 1920 reorganized into the Council of Labor and Defense. Based on the decision of the congress, the SRT was to act as a commission of the Council of People's Commissars. "The Council of Labor and Defense," the congress's resolution wrote, "belongs to coordinating and strengthening the activities of departments in the field of ensuring the country's defense and economic development." The resolutions of the STO were now binding on all departments and institutions and could only be repealed by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

The task of peaceful construction has been posed with all acuteness before the Party and the government, before the entire Soviet people, the question of restructuring the entire work of the organs of state administration of the country.

60 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, pp. 273-274.

61 Ibid., p. 274.

63 Lenin. Op. T. XXVI, p. 43.

64 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim report, p. 281.

In the report of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, V. I. Lenin specifically pointed out the need to improve and restructure the Soviet apparatus, emphasizing that this was one of the most important issues on the agenda. The question of Soviet construction was raised at the plenary session of the congress, discussed at the section on Soviet construction and at the communist faction of the congress. The detailed resolution "On Soviet Construction" adopted by the congress included the following sections: on the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, on the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, on the Council of People's Commissars, on the relationship between central and local bodies; on the work of local councils and their executive committees 67 . All the decisions adopted by the congress put forward the tasks of strengthening and further developing the organs of Soviet power in relation to the conditions of peaceful life. All the attention of the organs of Soviet power was to be focused on the problems of economic work, as well as on the tasks of broadly involving the masses of the people in the administration of the country. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars were given instructions to speed up the restructuring of the governing bodies, simplifying all their work, eliminating bureaucracy and red tape, and enlisting the working masses in the work of the state apparatus. The congress obliged the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars to clarify the functions of various state bodies and review their staffing in order to reduce them. The Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was instructed to review the structure of the people's commissariats and their collegiums, as well as to develop and approve new regulations on the work of each people's commissariat separately. The fulfillment of this task was given such importance that already on January 5, 1921, a commission was created and began to work to review the composition of the people's commissariats and their colleges. This commission included JV Stalin 69 . At the same time, a commission was set up to revise the headquarters and centers 70 . These commissions worked throughout 1921.

The Congress also reviewed the work of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In order to stabilize state activity, it was firmly established that decrees of national importance concerning the general norms of political and economic life, as well as decrees that cause fundamental changes in the existing practice of state bodies, must be considered beforehand by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The congress obliged the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to strengthen control over the people's commissariats, departments and local authorities.

The liberation of almost the entire territory of Soviet Russia from the White Guards and interventionists made it possible for the congress to expand the composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, supplementing it with new deputies from the liberated regions, in accordance with this, the congress decided to increase the composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee from 200 to 300 people. The congress also gave instructions on the regular convocation of sessions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (during the war years, due to a number of difficulties, they met extremely irregularly). The decisions on the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and on the Council of People's Commissars were made in the same spirit of streamlining and restructuring all work in accordance with the peaceful conditions of life in the country.

70 Ibid., d. 2, l. 7.

71 See Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Resolutions, p. 277.

daily work of executive committees. Re-elections of councils were not made for several years. Leading workers were not elected, but were everywhere appointed by higher Soviet bodies. The weakening of the life of the soviets was caused by the military situation and the fact, as noted in one resolution of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, that "a fierce civil war diverted a large number of the best Soviet workers to the fronts and created a situation in which the work of the Soviet civil apparatus naturally weakened" 72.

The need to strengthen the organs of Soviet power in the localities became an urgent task, since it was through them that wide circles of workers and peasants were attracted to the government of the country. Speaking at the VIII Congress of Soviets and noting the peculiarities of the Soviet system, V. I. Lenin pointed out that through the Soviet government, tens of millions of those who had not previously taken part in state life were attracted to active participation in state building. At the new, post-war stage, the soviets became organs of all-round mobilization of town and country for the restoration of the national economy.

The congress decided to strengthen the work of the soviets and Soviet bodies, to eliminate excessive centralization, to expand the rights of local executive committees, to broadly democratize all their work, to turn the plenums of soviets into a business-like working apparatus, to create separate sections in the soviets, etc.

The central decisions in the area of ​​building local councils were the following resolutions: "On the relationship between central and local bodies" 74 and "On the work of local councils and their executive committees" 75 . Both of these decisions were supposed to help expand and strengthen the work of local councils. The Soviets were given greater independence and initiative. The connection between the soviets and the masses grew stronger. The congress pointed out that with the end of the war, it was necessary "to carry out regular re-elections of village, volost, city and other councils within the established time limits, and also to convene regular Congresses of Soviets" 76 . The volost, uyezd and provincial executive committees were charged with the obligation to convene at precisely the set time limits 77 .

In order to revitalize the work of the soviets and strengthen their ties with the higher and lower authorities, the congress proposed to regularly convene extended meetings of the executive committees, with the invitation of workers from the lower bodies of the local soviets, to attract voters to the meetings of the executive committees, and to arrange these meetings at factories and factories. The executive committees were asked to inform the working people widely about all the activities of the Soviet state. In order to involve the working class broadly in the restoration of the national economy and in the administration of the country, the congress passed a decision to set up city councils "in all urban-type settlements."

By its decision "On the relationship between central and local authorities," the Congress of Soviets streamlined the relationship between state, economic, and Soviet bodies, strengthening the authority and necessary independence of local soviets. The congress clearly defined the functions, rights and obligations of local Soviet bodies, forbade the people's commissariats to cancel the decisions of local councils and their executive committees, pointing out that

December 29, 1920 VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets finished its work. Hundreds of delegates dispersed throughout the country, carrying to the remote corners of the war-torn state the first indications of ways to restore and further develop the war-ravaged national economy. "After ending the war, the Soviet country began to switch to peaceful economic construction. It was necessary to heal the wounds inflicted by the war. It was necessary to restore the ruined national economy, put industry, transport, and agriculture in order" 81 .

The Bolshevik Party, armed with a deep knowledge of the laws of the development of human society, paid all its attention to solving the problems of economic construction, proceeding from the fact that only the restoration of the country's productive forces, only a high degree of their development can create conditions for building a communist society, can ensure the military security of the Soviet states.

Immediately after the end of the work of the Eighth Congress of Soviets, the party and the government, the entire Soviet people launched work on a broad front to implement the decisions of the congress and, first of all, to implement the law "On measures to strengthen and develop peasant agriculture." During January, February and March 1921, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council of People's Commissars, as well as a number of people's commissariats and other bodies of the Soviet state, carried out hard work on the sowing campaign and the creation of sowing committees. A number of instructions and regulations were developed: “On the procedure and methods for creating a seed fund and “preserving seeds”, “Regulations on committees for the strengthening and development of peasant agriculture” and a number of others. and provincial and district land departments. All the attention of local councils was directed to the sowing campaign. Abroad, the Soviet government purchased the first batches of agricultural implements. Workshops were created in the villages to repair worn-out old agricultural implements. A "Week of Inventory Repair" was held. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee sent a number of responsible workers Many hundreds of rank-and-file party members and skilled workers were sent to carry out the sowing campaign.

However, in the course of all this work, it became more and more clear that while the old economic policy was maintained, the measures outlined by the Eighth Congress turned out to be in fact devoid of an economic foundation and in themselves could not ensure a real rise in agriculture. Relying mainly on the principles of war communism, and turning the tasks of raising productivity and improving

80 Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, verbatim record, p. 279.

the quality of cultivating the land of small-scale producers in the matter of their state service, the law actually bypassed the ways of mass economic influence on the entire peasantry. It did not create a daily economic interest for each peasant "individually. Contributing to the improvement of agriculture and the sowing campaign in 1921, the law at the same time could not and did not become the main driving force in the overall rise of agriculture. This decisive force was decisions of the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b) and the Leninist law on the replacement of food and raw materials distribution by a tax in kind, as well as the entire system of measures of the new economic policy. place in the overall system of measures to restore agriculture.

E. Update date: 09/07/2015. URL: https://site/m/articles/view/EIGHTH-ALL-RUSSIAN-CONGRESS-SOVIETS (date of access: 22.08.2019).

EIGHTH CONGRESS OF THE RKP(b) MOSCOW, MARCH 18-23, 1919

The 8th Congress of the RCP(b) was of great importance. The new Party Program he adopted was a program for building socialism. The decisions of the congress contributed to the strengthening of the military-political alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry, the strengthening of the Red Army, which ensured the success of the further struggle against the interventionists and the White Guards.

The composition of the congress Delegates with a decisive vote 301 Delegates with a deliberative vote 102 314,000 party members were represented at the congress, including almost 30,000 from army party organizations. The main issues of the agenda of the congress Report of the Central Committee Program of the RCP(b) On the Communist International Martial law and military policy Work in the countryside Organizational issues

We are sure that in a number of countries where we have many more allies and friends than we know, a simple translation of our program will be the best answer to the question of what the Russian Communist Party, which represents one of the detachments of the world proletariat, has done. Our program will be the strongest material for propaganda and agitation, it will be the document on the basis of which the workers will say: "Here are our comrades, our brothers, here is our common cause."

V. I. Lenin (Soch., vol. 29, p. 198)

To be able to reach an agreement with the middle peasant—not for a moment renouncing the struggle against the kulak and relying firmly only on the poor peasantry—is the task of the moment, for it is precisely now that a turn in our direction among the middle peasantry is inevitable...

V. I. Lenin (Soch., vol. 28, p. 171)

Resolution of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) "On the attitude towards the middle peasantry"

By the unanimous and speedy decision of the congress, we outlined a line on a particularly necessary and especially difficult question, which in other countries is considered even insoluble—the question of the attitude of the proletariat, which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, to the middle peasantry of many millions. We are all confident that this Congress resolution will strengthen our power.

V. I. Lenin (Soch., vol. 29, pp. 198 - 199)

Resolution of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) "On the military question"

Foreword
CONGRESS MINUTES
From the editorial committee
Session one. March 18, evening
Session two. March 19, morning
Third session March 19, evening
Session four. March 20, morning
The first meeting of the organizational section March 20, evening
Second meeting of the organizational section March 21, morning
The first meeting of the agrarian section March 20, evening
The second meeting of the agrarian section March 21, morning
Third meeting of the agrarian section March 22, evening
Session six. March 22, morning
Seventh session. March 22, evening
Eighth session. March 23, evening
RESOLUTIONS AND DECISIONS OF THE VIII CONGRESS OF THE RCP (b)
1. According to the report of the Central Committee
2. About the draft program
3. Program of the RCP (b)
4. About the Communist International
5. On a military issue
A. General provisions
B. Practical measures
6. On the organizational issue
A. Party building
1. Party Growth
2. Connection with the masses
3. Central Committee and local organizations
4. Internal structure of the Central Committee
5. National organizations
6. The existence of special organizations
7. Centralism and discipline
8. Distribution of party forces
9. Training of party workers
10. "News of the Central Committee"
11. Party charter
B. Soviet construction
1. Composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
2. Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
3. Councils and executive committees
4. Involvement in the Soviets of all working people
5. Socialist control
B. Relations between the Party and the Soviets
7. On the attitude towards the middle peasantry
8. On political propaganda and cultural and educational work in the countryside
9. About work among the female proletariat
10. About work among youth
11. About the party and Soviet press
12. About the Central Committee
13. About the audit commission
CONGRESS MATERIALS
I. Regulations of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b)
II. Appeal of the VIII Congress to the party organizations
III. Greetings of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b)
1. To the Communist International and the French Communists
2. Red Army
3. Greeting radio telegram on behalf of the congress to the government of the Hungarian Soviet Republic
4. Radio greeting to the government of the Hungarian Soviet Republic
5. Recording of a radiotelegram to Bela Kun
6. To Comrade Lorio
7. To Comrade Radek
IV. Greetings to the VIII Congress of the RCP (b)
From the Kharkov Provincial Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine
From the general meeting of the Oryol organization of the RCP (b)
From the general meeting of the Staro-Gorkinsky subdistrict of the RCP (b)
From the party cell 267 of the head stage of the South-Eastern Front
From the Moscow Committee of the Russian Communist Youth Union
From the general meeting of the Union of Latvian Working Youth under the RCP (b)
From the Astrakhan Soviet of Workers, Red Army and Navy Deputies
From the Vyborg District Council
From the Moscow Delegate Congress of the All-Russian Union of Workers and Employees of Public Communications
From cadets of the 5th Moscow Soviet infantry courses
Composition of the congress, its sections and commissions
Questionnaire on the personnel of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b)
1. Casting Delegates
2. Delegates with an advisory vote
3. List of participants of the congress, among which there may have been persons with guest tickets
4. List of congress delegates elected by organizations who did not arrive at the congress for various reasons depending on them
5. Organizational section
6. Agricultural section
7. Military section
8. Presidium
9. Secretariat
10. Program committee
11. Organizing committee
12. Military Commission
13. Agrarian Commission
14. Audit Commission
15. Credentials Commission
16. Editorial committee
APPS
I. Letter from the Central Committee regarding the convening of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b)
II. Reports of the Central Committee of the RCP(b)
A. Organizational Report of the Central Committee
1. Organizational work
2. Activities of the Secretariat
a) Reports, reports, correspondence
b) Reception of delegates
c) Questionnaires
3. Publishing
4. Report of the Central Bureau of Muslim Organizations of the RCP(b)
5. Report on the activities of the Federation of Foreign Groups
a) General report
b) Report of the German Group
c) Report of the Hungarian Group
d) Report of the Central Committee of the Czech-Slovak Group
e) Report of the South Slavic Group
6. Communication with organizations
B. Cash report of the Central Committee of the RCP (b)
III. Appeal of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RCP (b)
IV. actual amendment
NOTES AND INDEX
Notes
Name index
Index of party organizations
Index of periodicals
ILLUSTRATION
Cover of the first edition of the book "VIII Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)". Verbatim report, 1919

Eighth Congress of the RCP (b), took place from 18 to 23 March 1919 in Moscow. There were 301 voting and 102 deliberative delegates representing 313,766 party members.

By the beginning of 1919, a network of party organizations had been created, built taking into account the Soviet administrative-territorial division of the country (gubernia, city, county, and volost committees); only about 8 thousand (see History of the Civil War in the USSR, vol. 3, 1957, pp. 312–13). The delegates were represented by 40 provincial party organizations, uniting 220,495 party members, from the party organizations of the Red Army - 29,706, from the national party organizations of Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, Poland - 63,565 [see. Eighth Congress of the RCP (b). Protocols, 1959, p. 274]. The composition of the congress delegates (98 people did not fill out the questionnaires): by age - up to 30 years - 128, from 30 to 40 - 140, over 40 - 37 people, average age - 31 years, maximum - 61, minimum - 16 years; by profession - party workers - 27, workers - 108, office workers, doctors, etc. - 97; by education - with higher, including incomplete, - 73 people, with secondary education - 76; according to party experience - up to 1905 - 85 people, from 1905 to 1917 - 149, 1917-18 - 77. Order of the day: Report of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) (speaker V. I. Lenin); Program of the RCP (b) (speakers V. I. Lenin and N. I. Bukharin); Creation of the Comintern (speaker G. E. Zinoviev); Martial law and military policy (speaker G. Ya. Sokolnikov); Work in the countryside (speaker V. I. Lenin, speaker in the agrarian section V. V. Kuraev); Organizational issues (speaker G. E. Zinoviev); Central Committee elections.

The work of the congress was led by V. I. Lenin. He dedicated the first word to the memory of Ya. M. Sverdlov . In the report of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Lenin elucidated questions of foreign and domestic policy and the organizational work of the party; emphasized the need to further strengthen the Soviet state, the Red Army, the alliance of the working class with the peasantry, the importance of developing and adopting a new party program, since the program of 1903 was implemented. After discussing the report of the Central Committee, the congress unanimously approved its activities. The draft Program of the RCP (b) consisted of two main sections: a general (theoretical) section and a section in which the tasks of the transition period from capitalism to socialism were formulated. The first contained an assessment of the October Revolution and its international significance, gave a description of a simple commodity economy, capitalism, imperialism, their contradictions, inevitably leading to a proletarian revolution, put forward the task of uniting the revolutionary actions of the proletarians of all countries, and emphasized the need to combat opportunism. In the second - the tasks of the party in the transitional period in the field of political, military, judicial, economic, national relations, public education, religious relations, agriculture, distribution, money and banking, finance, housing, labor protection, social security and public health . The Leninist draft was adopted by the program commission elected at the 7th Party Congress, however, due to the differences in the commission, two speakers spoke at the 8th Congress: Lenin from the majority and Bukharin from the minority. Bukharin proposed to exclude from the program the characterization of a simple commodity economy and industrial capitalism, retaining only the analysis of imperialism. He considered imperialism as a special socio-economic formation, defended the anti-Marxist thesis of the so-called "pure imperialism". In his concluding remarks on the question of the program, Lenin proved the complete theoretical groundlessness and political harmfulness of Bukharin's views. Lenin pointed out that "pure imperialism" did not exist and never will exist (see Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 33, p. 151). Imperialism is a superstructure over the old, pre-monopoly capitalism. Bukharin's demand for the exclusion from the program of the characteristics of small commodity farming (peasant farming) led to a denial of the role of the middle peasant as an ally of the working class in socialist construction, to diverting attention from the struggle against the kulaks. N. I. Bukharin and G. L. Pyatakov opposed the clause on the right of nations to self-determination up to state secession, arguing that a nation is not only a proletariat, but also a bourgeoisie. Bukharin put forward the slogan: "The right of the working people to self-determination." The congress unanimously supported Lenin's proposition that every nation should have the right to self-determination, and this would contribute to the self-determination of the working people. Lenin's program for resolving the national question was of international importance. Renunciation of the slogan about the right of colonies and unequal nations to self-determination up to and including state secession would play into the hands of the imperialists.

The congress adopted the Leninist draft program as a basis and submitted it to the congress committee for final editing. The program, unanimously adopted by the 8th Congress, was the guiding document of the Communist Party until 22nd Congress of the CPSU(1961), who adopted a new program.

The report on the military question substantiated the need to put an end to voluntary methods in the building of the Red Army, to partisanship among the troops, and to create a regular Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army with iron discipline; the necessity of using old military specialists under the strict control of the Communist Party through the system of military commissars was confirmed; it was proposed to strengthen the training of commanders from the workers and peasants, to strengthen the party-political bodies and to increase the communist influence in the Red Army. The line of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was opposed by the so-called "military opposition". Many delegates criticized L. D. Trotsky, who headed the military department, for neglecting the party leadership in the army, for lordly behavior and dictatorial manners. The congress transferred the discussion of the military question to the military section. Then the military question was considered at a closed session of the congress. Lenin spoke in defense of the theses of the Central Committee at this meeting. He condemned the "military opposition", which rejected centralized control in the Red Army and defended partisanship, paid great attention to strengthening discipline, and emphasized the important role of commissars and the party political apparatus in the training and education of Soviet soldiers. The decisions of the 8th Congress on the military question were of great importance for the construction and strengthening of the Red Army.

In his report "On Work in the Countryside" Lenin substantiated the need to revise the attitude towards the middle peasants. In the first months of the socialist revolution, the middle peasantry wavered, and therefore the party pursued a policy of neutralizing the middle peasantry. After the revolution, the policy of the party in the countryside contributed to the middle peasantry, the middle peasant became the central figure in the countryside. The fears of the middle peasants that in the event of the victory of the White Guards landlordism would be restored, the military successes of the Red Army caused the middle peasantry to turn towards Soviet power. Lenin, in the resolution "On Attitude towards the Middle Peasantry" adopted by the congress, defined the party's new line on the peasant question: to be able to reach an agreement with the middle peasant, not for a moment refusing to fight the kulak and relying firmly on the poor peasants. A resolution "On political propaganda and cultural and educational work in the countryside" was also adopted. The decisions of the congress on the peasant question were of great importance for strengthening union of the working class and the peasantry.

When discussing the organizational issue (about party and Soviet building, about the leading role of the party in the Soviets), the opportunist group of T. V. Sapronov ‒ N. Osinsky (V. V. Obolensky), M. I. Minkov opposed the policy of the party. She denied the leading role of the party in the Soviets, spoke in favor of the merger of the Council of People's Commissars with the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and for the decentralized organization of the organs of Soviet power. The congress gave a decisive rebuff to the opportunists. The resolution on party building emphasized the need for further growth of the party at the expense of the proletariat of town and countryside, for improving the social composition of the party, and for strengthening the ties between the party and the masses. In the field of Soviet construction, it was proposed to unswervingly observe and implement Soviet democracy. The congress pointed to the need to strengthen the leading role of the Communist Party in the work of the Soviets.

The congress welcomed the creation of the 3rd, Communist International and joined its platform. On behalf of the congress delegates, Lenin spoke on the radio with a greeting to the Hungarian Soviet Republic.

The congress established the structure of the Central Committee of the RCP (b): the Central Committee organizes the Politburo, the Organizing Bureau, and the Secretariat. A decision was made on the position of the party organizations of the republics. At the congress, a Central Committee was elected consisting of 19 members and 8 candidate members of the Central Committee and an audit commission of 3 people.

The documents adopted by the congress determined the policy of the party in the most important questions - peasant, national, military. For the first time, the basic organizational principles of the Marxist party, which came to power and led the state, were formulated. The Party and the people received a concrete program for the struggle to build a socialist society (see Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). Young communist parties abroad have received a clear example of Lenin's analysis of the conditions of struggle, a model for generalizing the first experience of the ruling Marxist party. Marxist science has been enriched by the conclusions flowing from the practice of socialist construction, the 8th Congress was an outstanding event not only in the life of the party, the Soviet country, but of the entire international revolutionary movement.

Lit .: Lenin V.I., VIII Congress of the RCP (b). March 18‒23, 1919, Full. coll. soch., 5th ed., vol. 38, p. 125‒215; Eighth Congress of the RCP (b). Protocols, M., 1959; History of the CPSU, vol. 3, book. 2, M., 1968, Ch. 13; Lenin collection, vol. 37, M., 1970.

• - workers, peasants, Red Army and Cossack deputies - took place in Moscow on December 22-29. 1920 during the transition of the country from war to peaceful construction. There were 2537 delegates, of which 1728 with a decisive vote and 809 - ...
• - see the Extraordinary Eighth Congress of Soviets ...

  Soviet historical encyclopedia

• - took place in Moscow on 25 November. - Dec 5 1936. There were 2016 voting delegates, of which: workers 42%, peasants - 40%, employees - 18%; communists - 72%, non-party - 28%. The delegates represented 63 nationalities...

  Soviet historical encyclopedia

• - workers, peasants, Red Army and Cossack deputies, took place in Moscow on December 22-29, 1920 ...
• - took place from 18 to 23 March 1919 in Moscow. There were 301 voting delegates and 102 deliberative delegates, representing 313,766 party members...

  Great Soviet Encyclopedia

• - The Eighth Congress of the RCP was held from March 18 to March 23, 1919 in Moscow. There were 301 voting and 102 deliberative delegates, representing 313,766 party members...

  Great Soviet Encyclopedia

• - took place in Moscow on November 25 - December 5, 1936 ...

  Great Soviet Encyclopedia

• - was held in Moscow on November 25 - December 5, 1936. There were 2016 delegates with a decisive vote. The social composition of the delegates: workers - 42%, peasants - 40%, employees - 18%...

  Great Soviet Encyclopedia

• - General Slav. Indo-European character, German acht, etc.). It is the full form of osmъ "eight", which is believed to be derived from the dual form. h. noun octā "harrow" "four" ...

  Etymological dictionary Russian language

• - ...

  Spelling Dictionary of the Russian Language

• - EIGHTH, th, th. 1. see eight. 2. eighth, -oh. Obtained by dividing by eight. Eighth part. One eighth...

  Dictionary Ozhegov

• - EIGHTH, eighth, eighth. 1. num. order. to eight. Eight times. 2. in value noun eighth, eighth, female An eighth of something, an eighth. The book is one-eighth of a sheet. 3...

  Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

• Explanatory Dictionary of Efremova

• - eighth I m. One who in any set follows the seventh. II adj. 1. order. from num. eight; following the seventh when counting, numbering homogeneous objects, phenomena. 2...

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• - eight "...

  Russian spelling dictionary

• - eighth other Russian, senior-glory. vosm ὄγδοος, Serbohorv. ȍsmȋ, Slovenian. ǫ́smi, Czech. osmý, slvts. osmy, Polish. osmy. Originally lit. ãšmas, other Prussian. asmas, other ind. aṣṭamás, Avest. astǝma-...

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The Congress considers it necessary to approve the gravest, most humiliating peace treaty with Germany signed by the Soviet government, in view of our lack of an army, in view of the extremely painful state of the demoralized front-line units, in view of the need to take advantage of any, even the slightest, opportunity for a respite before imperialism attacks the Soviet Socialist Republic.

... the congress declares that the first and main task of both our party, and the entire vanguard of the class-conscious proletariat, and the Soviet government, the congress recognizes the adoption of the most energetic, ruthlessly decisive and draconian measures to increase self-discipline and discipline of the workers and peasants of Russia, to explain the inevitability of Russia's historical approach to liberation, patriotic, socialist war, in order to create everywhere and everywhere the organizations of the masses, tightly bound and with an iron unified will, organizations capable of united and self-sacrificing action both in everyday life and especially at critical moments in the life of the people - finally, for a comprehensive, systematic , universal education of the adult population, without distinction of sex, in military knowledge and military operations.

Convinced that a workers' revolution is steadily maturing in all the belligerent countries, preparing for the inevitable and complete defeat of imperialism, the congress declares that the socialist proletariat of Russia will support the fraternal revolutionary movement of the proletariat of all countries with all its strength and with all the means at its disposal.

The conclusion of a peace treaty is met with unanimous condemnation by all political forces in the country without exception. Even among the Bolsheviks themselves on the question of peace, in fact, there is a split approximately equally. Lenin's opponents, from the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries to General Denikin A.I., object in their speeches to his arguments about the impossibility of stopping the German offensive due to the final collapse of the army and propose instead to persuade the people to a mass uprising against the German-Austrian occupying forces. With a sharp condemnation of the world on March 5 (18), 1918, Patriarch Tikhon speaks, declaring that “whole regions inhabited by the Orthodox people are being torn away from us and surrendered to the will of an enemy alien in faith ... peace, giving our people and Russian land into heavy bondage, - such a world will not give the people the desired rest and tranquility.

Trotsky, in protest against the conclusion of the Brest Peace, resigns from the post of People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. On April 8, he receives a new appointment, to the post of People's Commissar of the Navy. The chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, called the concluded peace "unfortunate", and the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Zinoviev, declared that "the entire structure now being erected by the German imperialists in an unhappy agreement is nothing more than a light wooden fence, which in the very short time will be mercilessly swept away by history" . Germany's relations with the Bolsheviks were not ideal from the start. From April 1918, the Soviet ambassador Joffe engaged in active revolutionary propaganda already in Germany itself, which ends with the November Revolution. The Germans, for their part, are consistently liquidating Soviet power in the Baltics and Ukraine, providing assistance to the "White Finns" and actively contributing to the formation of a center of the White movement on the Don.

The Entente powers perceive the concluded separate peace with hostility. On March 6, British troops landed in Murmansk. On March 15, the Entente declares its non-recognition of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, on April 5, Japanese troops land in Vladivostok, and on August 2, British troops land in Arkhangelsk.

"Troops of the Veil"

After the conclusion of the Brest Peace, the Bolsheviks, starting on March 3, 1918, begin to form the so-called "veil troops" along the demarcation line, numbering up to 11 infantry divisions. The "veil" system consisted of mobile detachments formed on a volunteer basis, and was divided into Northern and Western sectors, to which was added the Southern sector in the summer of 1918, which was finally transformed into regular troops in the fall of 1918 and renamed the front. For service in the “veil” detachments, former tsarist officers who came to these detachments under the influence of patriotic slogans of the fight against Germany were actively involved.

Dzerzhinsky's opinion that "by signing the conditions, we do not guarantee ourselves against new ultimatums", expressed by him at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) on February 23, 1918, was justified to some extent. German troops advanced beyond the occupation zone provided for by the treaty, so that the demarcation line actually had to be moved: on April 22, the Germans occupied Simferopol, on May 1 Taganrog, on May 8 Rostov-on-Don.

The final advance of the Germans stops by June 1918 on the line Bataysk - Don - Seversky Donets - Degtevo - Osinovka - Novobelaya - Valuyki - Grushevka - Belgorod - Rylsk.