p Comrades, our great Party, under whose leadership the Soviet people have won historic victories, was created by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. He taught the Party to serve the working people with unbounded devotion. He put in its hands a mighty weapon—the theory and policy of struggle against capitalism, of struggle for the revolutionary reconstruction of society, for socialism and communism. "By educating the workers’ party,” he wrote, ".. .Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat, capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organising the new system, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the working and exploited people in organising their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie."  [281•1 

p When we re-register the Party membership, Party card No. 1 is always made out in the name of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. (Stormy applause.) This is not simply a symbol. The great energy of Lenin’s mind and the beat of his fiery heart live on in the deeds of the Party. Lenin’s ideas, his political steeling and his science of victory are the inexhaustible 282 source from which we draw confidence in our strength and our courage, optimism and will for victory. (Applause.)

p Born as the Party of the proletariat, the CPSU has, since the triumph of socialism and, as always, with the support of the working class, become the vanguard of the whole Soviet people. Today approximately one in every eleven citizens of the USSR of the age of 18 or over is a member of the Party. Of the 14 million members of the CPSU more than half are workers or collective farmers. In the Party there are almost 6 million engineers, technicians, agronomists, teachers, doctors and other specialists who are active in the building of communism.

p We neither have nor can have another political force that can so fully and consistently take into account, combine and co-ordinate the interests and requirements of all classes and social groups, of all nations and nationalities and of all the generations of our society as the Communist Party is doing. The Party comes forward as the organising core of the entire social system, as the collective brain of the whole Soviet people.

p The principal element of the Party’s work is its political leadership of society. The tasks of communist construction demand the further improvement of the work of Party and Government organs, the concentration of their attention on pivotal political, economic and ideological problems.

p The triumph of socialism, it goes without saying, does not imply the complete and final settlement of all social problems. Like any other developing organism, socialist society is confronted by various difficulties. However, all of them are surmountable. The only thing is not to close our eyes to them but to find effective means of overcoming them. The art of Party and state leadership lies precisely in taking timely note of nascent problems, realistically assessing them and charting the way for solving them. Profoundly and comprehensively studying the situation and the trends of development, courageously laying bare difficulties and contradictions and showing the way to surmount them, the Party blazes the trail of communist construction, setting the people tasks that have to be carried out and inspiring them to perform creative feats of labour. (Applause.)

p The deeds of the Leninist Party match its words. The line towards the triumph of the socialist revolution, the line 283 towards socialism, the line towards the building of communism—these are the words of the Party, expressed in its three Programmes. The victory of the October Revolution, the triumph of socialism and the successful advance towards the communist morrow—such is the action of the Party, the action of the whole people.

p The Party’s strength lies in its fidelity to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, to the principles of proletarian internationalism. Its strength lies in its monolithic unity, which was consolidated and unflaggingly upheld by Lenin. Its strength lies in its unbreakable bond with the working class, with the masses, whose collective leader and organiser it is. Its strength lies in its revolutionary spirit, in its ability critically to assess and profoundly understand the results of its work.

p Intrinsic to our Party are a sense of lofty responsibility before the people and high principles. During Lenin’s lifetime and after his death the Party courageously and openly criticised, as it continues to do to this day, errors and shortcomings. It sternly denounced the personality cult, which led to violations of the Leninist norms of Party and state life, of socialist legality and democracy. It emphatically rejected subjectivism, which expounds unfounded improvisation in place of a scientific approach to phenomena of social life. The Party tells the people the truth, no matter how stern it may be. ”. . .Let us face the truth squarely. . .,” Lenin taught the Communists. "In politics that is always the best and the only correct attitude."  [283•1 

p Lenin attached immense significance to developing the political awareness of the masses, which, he wrote, remains "the basis and chief content of our work".  [283•2  In line with Lenin’s precepts the Party is making sure that all Communists consciously master the fundamentals of MarxismLeninism and that their ideological principles find expression in practical participation in the nationwide work of building communism. The Party educates every Communist and every Soviet citizen as an ardent patriot who devotes all his strength for the benefit of the Motherland and, at the same time, as a convinced internationalist.

p The importance of educational work among the masses 284 is particularly great today when a sharp ideological struggle rages between socialism and capitalism. "We must,” Lenin wrote, "untiringly combat any and every bourgeois ideology, regardless of the fashionable and striking garb in which it may drape itself."  [284•1  The bourgeois ideologists and, for that matter, their accomplices, the revisionists, stand in no need of borrowing the ability to change garbs and give them a spurious polish. And it is by no means the goodness of life that has taught them this. The material from which their garb is sewn is much too flimsy. The attempts to slander socialism, the policy of the CPSU and the Soviet Government and, at the same time, to rehabilitate capitalism and embellish the facade of its ramshackle edifice fail the test of time. (Applause.)

p Nonetheless, the danger of bourgeois ideology and revisionism must on no account be underestimated. Experience shows that the poisoned seeds of ideological wavering, indifference to politics and lack of principles sprout on the soil of this sort of underestimation. Communists are obliged to follow Lenin’s example of political and ideological staunchness, passion in struggle against any distortion of our revolutionary theory, intolerance of any manifestations of survivals of the old world in the minds of the citizens of our socialist society.

p We live in an age witnessing exceedingly swift development. Rates of growth are mounting and the scale of communist construction is increasing. Science and MarxistLeninist theory are playing an increasingly more important part. The international role and responsibility of the Soviet state are growing. All this is enhancing the importance of the Communist Party as the leading force of Soviet society. (Applause.)

p Tested and confirmed by the experience of the CPSU, Lenin’s teaching that the Party is the leader of the revolutionary masses and the leading force of the new society and Lenin’s principles of Party construction are the property not only of the CPSU but also of the fraternal Communist Parties. Facts show that Communists triumph where the Party consistently implements its role as vanguard of the working class and other working people, where the Leninist norms of Party life are strictly observed and where the 285 Party safeguards and tirelessly strengthens its political, organisational and ideological unity. Conversely, any diminution of the Party’s role and any departure from the Leninist principles of Party development lead to serious setbacks and may create a threat to the socialist gains of the people.

p In order to ensure the success of the great work of building communism the Party must pursue a correct MarxistLeninist policy, and the broad masses of working people, the whole Soviet people must understand and implement this policy. ".. .We can administer,” Lenin said, "only when we express correctly what the people are conscious of. Unless we do this the Communist Party will not lead the proletariat, the proletariat will not lead the masses... ."  [285•1  The programme of communist construction put forward by the Communist Party has become the vital cause of the whole Soviet people. The Party’s unity with the people under the banner of Leninism is the best guarantee that this historic task will be carried out successfully. (Applause.)

p Lenin used to say that the Communist Party is the brain, honour and conscience of our epoch. In commemorating the birthday of Lenin we solemnly declare that Soviet Communists will continue doing everything to make our Party, created and reared by Lenin, always worthy of this lofty appraisal of its founder, teacher and leader. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

On the Leninist banner of our Party are inscribed the words: "Everything in the name of man, for the sake of man!" The Soviet people will carry this banner along uncharted trails and make our country—the birthplace of socialism—the birthplace of communism, the most humane of social systems. (Prolonged applause.)