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p Comrades, Soviet people regard the results they achieved not only as a measure of the work already accomplished. This, at the same time, is a point of advance from which 32 we look into the future, determining our tasks and prospects.

p Life marches on, and each stage in our society’s development brings up its own problems. There was a time when the main task was to hold out in face of the onslaught of the class enemy, to eliminate the backwardness inherited from the past and to introduce in life the basic principles of socialism. These problems have been solved, this stage has already been passed.

p Today we are facing new tasks, new not only in magnitude but also in character. The thing is to utilise most fully the possibilities created by developed socialist society. We must learn to employ with maximum effect both our social gains and the tremendous productive forces our country possesses, the achievements of science and technology and the rising level of the Soviet people’s culture and education. Only on this basis can we successfully build communism and advance along the path charted by the Party Programme. The scale and complexity of the tasks we have to accomplish make ever greater demands on everything we do, on the style and methods of our work.

p The economy, the creation of communism’s material and technical foundation, is the main bridgehead of the Soviet people’s struggle for the victory of communism. Soviet society’s rate of advance, the course of competition between the two world systems and our contribution to the development of the world revolutionary process will depend to a decisive degree on how we develop the economy.

p The economy of the Soviet Union has entered a stage when a rise in the efficiency of social production and an improvement of qualitative performance indicators in all sectors, based on the latest scientific and technological achievements, are increasingly becoming the main source of economic growth.

p This means that production must grow not only by commissioning new capacities and developing new lands but largely by making better use of each enterprise, each machine, each hectare of land. This implies such an allocation and use of capital investments when each invested ruble would yield a maximum return. This implies a reduction in per unit outlays of raw and other materials and fuel.

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p An important prerequisite for successful advance is to achieve a balance of social production and set proportions and rates which would optimally meet the requirements of both production and consumption.

p We shall continue to devote primary attention to heavy industry. At the same time agriculture, the industries producing consumer goods and the public services will be developed at accelerated rates. This is necessary for further raising the country’s potential, for ensuring scientific and technological progress, for further advancing the living standard of the Soviet people.

p Life has set important tasks in improving the methods of managing and guiding the economy, improving the system of planning and economic stimulation. To cope with these tasks the Party and the Government have launched a broad economic reform. It is the main aim of the reform to raise the efficiency of social production and to ensure a further rise in the productivity of labour. To achieve this it is necessary, first of all, to make wider use of economic instruments and ably to combine centralised guidance with the initiative of the personnel of industrial enterprises, of state and collective farms.

p The main trends of economic policy, in line with the present stage of the country’s development, were mapped out in the decisions of the 23rd Congress of the CPSU and the plenary meetings of the Central Committee held from 1965 to 1967. Not so much time has passed since the implementation of these decisions began, but the very first results show that we are on the right road. In the last three years the growth rates of industrial and agricultural production have noticeably risen. Key sectors of the national economy have begun to operate more profitably. All this has made it possible to carry out new measures for improving the people’s well-being.

p Our Party will continue to devote unflagging attention to the elaboration of scientifically based economic solutions aimed at further advancing the country’s productive forces.

p We have everything to build up an industry that will be the most powerful and advanced in the world as regards total output, scientific and technical level, the quality of the goods produced and the main economic indicators. Our social system enables us to utilise all the advantages of 34 planned economy. We have at our disposal modern, wellequipped production and technical facilities. We possess one-third of all the oil-bearing areas in the world, more than one-fourth of all the natural gas resources, huge sources of water power and coal deposits and exceedingly rich reserves of metal ores and timber. Remarkable personnel capable of coping with any problem have grown up in our country.

p A fresh advance of Soviet industry will make it possible further to strengthen the defences of our great power and to cement the positions of socialism in the world.

p The, interests of the Soviet people, the interests of communist construction require that we have not only a powerful industry but also a highly developed agriculture capable of fully meeting the growing needs of the population in foodstuffs and industry in raw materials.

p Since time immemorial agriculture has depended on the climate, on the whims of nature. Man has always sought to get rid of this dependence or, at least, lessen it. This is particularly important for our Motherland, which extends from the Baltic plains to the Pacific, from the mountain ranges of the Caucasus and the Pamirs to the Arctic tundra. Only in this way can we achieve high and stable growth rates in crop raising and animal husbandry.

p That is why we attach prime significance to fulfilling the long-term programme of land reclamation and land improvement, to the use of chemicals in agriculture and to efficiency of farming. Our country is now able to allocate more resources for the development of agriculture. We want agriculture to achieve the same level as socialist industry as regards labour productivity, technical facilities and the use of scientific achievements. This is a fully feasible task at the present stage of scientific and technological progress. (Applause.}

p Mankind has entered an age of a sweeping revolution in science and technology. The Soviet Union is proud of the splendid achievements of its scientists. The great successes of physics and chemistry open up new sources of energy, make it possible to create new materials and extend the horizons of all key industries. Discoveries in biology create new possibilities in agriculture and medicine. The achievements of cybernetics help raise the productivity of mental labour and blaze trails in automating various types 35 of business activity and management. Science is becoming a direct productive force in the real meaning of the word. This role of science will rise in future.

p Scientists are faced with tremendously important tasks of penetrating the finest structure of matter, probing the secrets of life, transforming some kinds of energy into others, controlling thermonuclear reactions, further exploring space, influencing processes in the atmosphere and studying the depths of the earth and the sea. Much is to be done in the social sciences both in elaborating problems of communist construction in our country and studying questions of world development.

p Paying due tribute to the achievements of scientists, the Soviet people expect of them ever greater achievements. Socialism develops, drawing on the most advanced, progressive things created by the human genius. We associate our future with science and are confident that Soviet science, our scientists will be in the forefront of world progress. (Prolonged applause.)

p The tempestuous growth of science and technology makes the eternal problem of the relationship between man and nature especially important and timely. Even the first socialists held that the bringing of man and nature closer together would be a characteristic of the future society. Centuries have passed since then. Having built a new society, we translated into reality many of the things which the predecessors of scientific socialism could only dream of. But nature has not lost for us its tremendous value both as the primary source of material wealth and as an inexhaustible well-spring of health, happiness, love of life and the spiritual wealth of every man.

p All this should be recalled to stress how important it is to treasure nature, to protect and augment its wealth. (Applause.) Economical, efficient use of natural resources, concern for the land, forests, rivers and pure air, for the flora and fauna—all this is our vital, communist cause. We must preserve and beautify our land for present and future generations of Soviet people. (Stormy applause.)

p The more rationally we utilise nature’s riches, the greater the successes industry, agriculture and science will score, the higher the productivity of social labour will rise and the richer, finer and more cultured the life of the Soviet people will become.

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p We have every ground to speak of our successes but we see that we also have unsolved problems. We know that not all Soviet people, not every family live today the way we all would want them to. That is why in all its work, in all its plans the Party pays particular attention to raising the people’s living standard. As our national income grows, wages of the working people will steadily rise and the production of consumer goods expand. We will continue to build houses and cultural and service establishments on a large scale so as to ensure an improvement of the housing and living conditions of every Soviet family. (Applause.)

p Observing the glorious 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, our Party, fully aware of its responsibility, declares: with each passing year the might of the Soviet Union will grow and the life of the Soviet people will improve. The Soviet citizen will ever more fully enjoy the fruits yielded by our gains, feel ever more tangibly the advantages of the socialist way of life. (Applause.)

p Comrades, Marxists have always acted on the principle that the development of social production underlies social progress. This, however, does not at all mean that it is possible to relegate to the background the solution of other important social and political problems. All aspects of communist construction are closely interconnected. It is well known that the solution of socio-political problems depends on economic achievements. And conversely, economic development is largely determined by the extent to which socio-political problems are resolved. Improvement of social relations, development of socialist democracy and statehood, ideological educational work—all this is a matter of paramount importance.

p Essential distinctions between the working class, collective-farm peasantry and intelligentsia of our country are being obliterated at the present stage. Today we see more definitely and clearly how these problems will be solved. We know better what has to be done for this purpose.

p The nature of agricultural labour is increasingly changing. Today the peasant has to deal with intricate machines, electricity, chemical products, with the sciences related to farming and livestock raising. Here you have the process of practically converting agricultural labour into a variety of industrial labour.

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p In recent years no little has been done to accelerate the drawing together of town and country in the way of life and culture. Now that telling successes have been registered in consolidating the economy of the collective and state farms, the basis for transforming the village, its face and way of life is becoming ever more substantial. It is a matter of large-scale building of houses and cultural and service establishments, of the completion of rural electrification and road construction. These are immense undertakings and much time will be needed to achieve them on the scale of a country like ours. But we consider this a matter of state importance and are tackling it in earnest. (Applause.)

p The present-day level of production and scientific and technological progress are increasingly bringing closer together the labour of the worker and peasant with that of the engineer, technician and agronomist. The swift cultural advance of the entire population is playing an important part in this respect. The Party strives to have all workers, all peasants become intellectuals in the broadest sense of the word, to have them apply to the full their creative abilities and actively participate in society’s spiritual life.

p All this, of course, will not come of itself. Here the purposeful activity of the Party and the state is needed. Our plans provide for the further development of all spheres of cultural life, for the improvement of the entire system of education—general, higher and technical. Formulating economic plans for the future, we deliberately build into them elements which lead to the automation and mechanisation of production processes and a curtailment of the field of unskilled labour. The latter is very important because, in addition to the economic effect, it will also ease the conditions and nature of the work performed by millions of Soviet people.

p The Party attaches great significance to creating the most favourable conditions for the all-round development of the personality. Big possibilities in this respect are opened up by the increase in the free time the working people have. Free time means not only rest and leisure, but, as Marx stressed, it provides a kind of “room” for the development of the personality. Everything should be done so that the extension of this “room” should give all 38 members of society greater opportunities to enjoy the benefits of culture, to study, to engage in their favourite occupation in various fields of scientific, technical and artistic endeavour.

p As our society advances, the role of literature and the arts will rise still further. Today the treasure-house of world culture is available to the masses of the working people. This elevates the social mission of art and thereby the responsibility of writers, composers, workers in the theatre, cinema and pictorial arts. The Party and the people highly value their creative efforts. Men of letters and the arts are called upon to create works which would ideologically enrich the builders of the new society, spread communist morality among the masses and satisfy the rising aesthetical requirements of our people.

p Improvement of socialist social relations presupposes the further strengthening of the Soviet state, the enhancing of its organisational role in the economy. It concerns the development of socialist democracy. What is needed is precision, co-ordination and high efficiency in the work of all links of the state apparatus, consolidation of law and order and state discipline, elimination of the elements of red tape and a formal attitude we still encounter in our life. All this is of prime significance for communist construction.

p By its nature communism is a society created by the masses themselves and in the interests of all the people. To advance to communism means to draw the people more widely into the practical work of administering state, economic and social affairs. Utmost enhancement of the role of the Soviets of Working People’s Deputies and public organisations will make for greater participation of the people in handling state and public affairs, and stimulate the people’s initiative and their constructive activity. Our Party is regularly doing much work along all these lines.

p The Soviet system has brought up the working people in the spirit of devotion to the cause of socialism, of collectivism and developed the feeling of being master of their country. But to be master means that, alongside great rights, you also have great duties. It means to bear high responsibility not only for one’s own personal work and behaviour, but also for the affairs of the collective, the enterprise, the entire country. The development of these 39 qualities, which must be inalienable traits of the inner world of every Soviet citizen, is one of the most important tasks of the Party in communist construction. (Applause.}

Comrades, great are the deeds and the exploits accomplished by the Soviet people in the past 50 years. Sweeping vistas are opening up before them at the present halfcentury milestone. We are convinced that the years of the second half century of our country, too, will be marked with new accomplishments of epochal significance. ( Applause.) The revolutionary flame, kindled in the hearts of the people by the October Revolution, illumines our path forward, towards the triumph of communism! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)