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p April 9, 1971

p Comrade delegates,

p Permit me to report to you the results of the first Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee elected by the 24th Congress of our Party.

p At this Plenary Meeting, which was held in an atmosphere of unity and cohesion, the Central Committee of the Party unanimously elected its leading organs.

p L. I. Brezhnev has been elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. (Stormy, prolonged applause. All rise.)

p The following comrades have been elected Members of the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU: Brezhnev L. I. (applause), Voronov G. I. (applause), Grishin V. V. (applause), Kirilenko A. P. (applause), Kosygin A. N. (applause), Kulakov F. D. (applause), Kunayev D. A. (applause), Mazurov K. T. (applause), Pelshe A. Y. (applause), Podgorny N. V. (applause), Polyansky D. S. (applause), Suslov M. A. (applause), Shelepin A. N. (applause), Shelest P. Y. (applause), Shcherbitsky V. V. (applause).

p The following comrades have been elected Alternate Members of the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU:

p Andropov Y. V. (applause), Demichev P. N. (applause), Masherov P. M. (applause), Mzhavanadze V. P. (applause), Rashidov Sh. R. (applause), Ustinov D. F. (applause).

p Comrades Brezhnev L. I.—General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (stormy, prolonged 448 applause), Demichev P. N. (applause), Kapitonov I. V. (applause), Katushev K. F. (applause), Kirilenko A. P. (applause), Kulakov F. D. (applause), Ponomaryov B. N. (applause), Solomentsev M. S. (applause), Suslov M. A. (applause), Ustinov D. F. have been elected Secretaries of the Central Committee of the CPSU. (Applause.)

p The Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee approved Comrade Pelshe A. Y. Chairman of the Party Control Committee. (Applause.)

p The Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU elected Comrade Sizov G. F. its Chairman. (Applause).

p Comrade delegates,

p The Central Committee you elected asked me to thank the Congress for its great trust. (Applause.) We value this trust and are well aware of the great responsibility to which it commits us. Allow me to assure you that the Central Committee of the Party, the Politbureau and the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU will do all they can to translate into life the historic decisions of the 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p Comrade delegates,

p The 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is about to close.

p For ten days, the envoys of our great Party, the plenipotentiary delegates of all its glorious detachments, met at their Congress to discuss the results of five years of work and to work out a political course for the years ahead.

p For ten days the attention of all our Party, of the entire Soviet people, who justly regard Party congresses as important landmarks in their history, in their advance to the summits of communism, was centered on the Kremlin, on our Congress. (Prolonged applause.)

p For ten days, the eyes of the whole world were turned on this hall, for the enormous role played by the socialist countries and Communist Parties, by our socialist state and our Leninist Party, in the historical process and in world events has long been realised all over the world. (Applause.) By their heroic struggle and selfless labour the working class, the working people of the world and their communist vanguard have ushered in the era when world history cannot disregard socialism and communism and cannot develop apart from them. (Applause.)

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p Summing up the results of the Congress, we have every reason to say that much has been done, that its documents, the speeches of the delegates were a worthy reflection of the immense and all-round experience of our Party, of its collective wisdom. The decisions and documents of the Congress will for long remain in the focus of the ideological activity of the Party and the people. Our Communists and all Soviet people will find in them a source of inspiration; the decisions of the Congress will serve them as a reliable guide to action. (Applause.)

p Comrades,

p I have already had occasion to say that Soviet Communists regarded their Party congresses not only as reports to their own Party, but to all Communist Parties, to the world working-class movement as well. With this attitude we have also come to the 24th Congress.

p In its work, as you know, more than a hundred delegations from Communist and Workers’ Parties, as well as from national-democratic and socialist Parties of the world, took part. Hardly ever in history had such a representative forum of world revolutionary, liberation and progressive forces gathered. For us, Soviet Communists, this is a source of profound satisfaction. (Prolonged applause.)

p While listening to the speeches of our foreign friends and brothers, we felt ever more strongly that we were an inalienable, integral part of the great international movement called upon to transform the world. And we realised with particular force the worldwide significance of what our Party and our people are doing, the significance of the contribution we have made, and will be making by our successes in communist construction to the world revolutionary process. (Prolonged applause.)

p We could see once again that the foreign comrades unanimously approve the course of our Party, its principled Marxist-Leninist line in the world communist movement, its unfailing and consistent efforts aimed at strengthening the unity of this movement, at rallying all revolutionary forces. (Applause.)

p Dear foreign brothers and friends! Permit me on behalf of the Congress, on behalf of all our Party and the entire Soviet people, to thank you for the great contribution you have made to the work of our Congress. (Applause.) Permit me to thank you for the very interesting and profound 450 speeches which still more vividly revealed to us the picture of the world, the picture of the revolutionary battles taking place on all continents. (Applause.) Allow me to thank you for the warm words addressed to our Party, to the Soviet people, for the sentiments of solidarity and internationalism which permeated your speeches. (Prolonged applause.)

p Comrade delegates,

p The 24th Congress has armed our Party and the entire Soviet people with a clear-cut political line, a political programme for the period ahead. The essence and the content of this line are clearly expressed in the Report of the Central Committee, in the Report on the Draft Directives for the forthcoming Five-Year Plan, in the decisions and resolutions our Congress has just adopted.

p In the sphere of economic policy the Party line is a line designed to improve the living conditions of the Soviet people. Without slackening attention to the development of heavy industry, including its defence branches, the Party sets forth as the main practical tasks of its entire economic work a considerable rise in the people’s welfare. This is our goal, comrades, and to attain it we must use to the full all the reserves, all the opportunities inherent in our economy. (Applause.)

p In the sphere of social policy the Party line is a line designed further to strengthen the unity of Soviet society, to bring still closer together the classes and social groups, all the nations and nationalities that make up Soviet society. It is a line for the consistent development of socialist democracy and the enlistment of increasing numbers of people for the management of public and state affairs; it is, further, a line for raising the communist consciousness of all working people, for all-out development of science and culture, for further intellectual development of the Soviet man, for asserting a moral and political atmosphere in the country in which people would find it easy to breathe, joyous to work and peaceful to live. (Prolonged applause.)

p In the sphere of Party development—it is a line for improving the methods of Party guidance of society, strictly observing Leninist norms of Party life, further rallying our Party ranks; it is a line for the all-out strengthening of the bonds of the Party with the working class and the entire Soviet people. (Applause.)

p In the sphere of foreign policy the Party line is a line 451 of peace and international security, of strengthening the fraternity of the countries of socialism and alliance with the liberation anti-imperialist forces of the world. It can already be said that the programme of struggle for peace, freedom and independence of the peoples, set forth by the 24th Congress, has met with the broadest response on all continents throughout the world. (Applause.)

p Thus, the action programme worked out by the 24th Congress is focussed on the most vital interests of the Soviet people. And already today, we see that this is the way the Soviet people—both Communists and non-Party people— regard the work of the 24th Congress and the main content of its decisions. I should like to express the confidence that this will impart to the Soviet people still greater strength, energy, inspiration in their work, in their efforts to implement the Directives for the new Five-Year Plan, for the realisation of all the decisions adopted by the Congress (Applause.)

p Comrade delegates, you represent all our Republican, territorial and regional Party organisations. You represent all the branches of our national economy, all walks of social life, all sections of communist construction. You represent all the generations of Soviet Communists. All this made it possible for the Congress to discuss thoroughly the problems posed, to find solutions which to the greatest possible extent accord with the tasks in hand, with the interests of the Party and the people. (Prolonged applause.)

p In a few days you will all return to your towns and villages, to your Party organisations. May I express the confidence that in the course of your day-to-day work, you, comrade delegates, will transmit to all Communists and all working people the charge of energy, inspiration and enthusiasm which every one of us had received at the Congress. (Stormy applause.)

p The main thing, now that we have worked out a reliable and correct political course, is to carry it out successfully.

p The scope of the tasks set by the Congress is such that their implementation demands that all our work—- economic, ideological-political, Party-organisational—be raised to a considerably higher level. It is precisely on this that all Party organisations should concentrate after the Congress. In a word, there is much to be done—much interesting and absorbing work lies ahead. We are looking forward to 452 years of selfless and inspired endeavour. Only in this way shall we translate into life what the Congress has charted. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p Best wishes of success to you all, comrade delegates! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p Best wishes of success to our Party, the Party of Lenin, the recognised leader of the Soviet people. (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p Best wishes of success to all Soviet working people, the architects of their own destiny, the architects of their own happiness! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p Long live the Communist Party of the Soviet Union! (Stormy, prolonged applause. All rise.)

p Long live the heroic Soviet people! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p Under the banner of Marxism-Leninism—forward to new victories of communism! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p Comrade delegates, allow me to declare the 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union closed.

p AH rise to an ovation. Cries of "Hurrah!”, "Glory to the Leninist Communist Party!”, "Glory to the Leninist Central Committee!”, "Glory to the Soviet people!"

All delegates and guests sing the Internationale. The hall resounds in ovation and cheers in honour of the CPSU.