Brezhnev Report to the 23rd Congress

Leonid Brezhnev, Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. March 29, 1966

Delivered to the 23rd CPSU Congress on March 29, 1966, Brezhnev’s report presented the post-Khrushchev leadership as a return to steadier economic management. It acknowledged slowing growth and falling efficiency, blaming unrealistic targets, weak planning, and neglect of incentives and “economic accountability.” The speech introduced the 1966–1970 plan as a corrective: apply science and technology, raise labor productivity, strengthen agriculture through mechanization and chemicalization, and improve living standards. Brezhnev also promised to narrow the gap between heavy industry and consumer goods, while reaffirming the party’s supervisory role in culture and public life.

Original Source: Pravda, 30 March 1966.

In examining economic development we must see both the positive aspects of the results of our work and also the shortcomings. In recent years negative phenomena have appeared, such as a slowing down of the rates of growth of production and labor productivity and a reduction in the effectiveness of the utilization of production assets and capital investments. Unless we adopt a critical approach we cannot give a correct 'appraisal, without which our advance will be less successful.

After its October (1964) plenary session, the CPSU Central Committee analyzed the state of affairs in economics, exposed the reasons for the negative phenomena and outlined paths for overcoming them.

The rates of economic growth were affected by shortcomings in administration and planning, by underestimation of the methods of economic accountability and by failure to make full use of material and moral incentives. The forms and methods of the management, planning and economic stimulation of production employed until recently did not conform to the new, higher level of productive forces in the country and had begun to hamper their development.

The crop failures of 1963 and 1965 had a negative effect on the national economy, and especially on raising the material well-being of the working people. The complications in the international situation must also be taken into account. The aggressive actions of the US imperialists forced us to channel substantial additional funds into strengthening the country's defense might in recent years.

It must be admitted that, because of a subjectivist approach, certain miscalculations were made in working out the seven-year plan; running ahead was permitted. The expansion of production established for some branches did not always conform to actual possibilities.

The territorial system of industrial management led to the division of guidance of branches of industry among man), economic regions; uniform technical policy was violated, research organizations were cut off from production, and this hampered the development and introduction of technology ...

... The five-year plan for 1966- 1970 is an important new stage in the Soviet people's struggle to create the material and technical base of communism. The CPSU Central Committee defined the chief task of the new five-year plan. It Is to ensure-on the basis of the comprehensive utilization of the achievements of science and technology, the industrial development of all social production and a rise in its effectiveness and in the productivity of labor-the further significant growth of industry and a high stable rate of agricultural development, and thereby to attain a substantial rise in the people's standard of living and the fuller satisfaction of the material and cultural needs of all Soviet people.

New steps will be taken in the coming five-year period to solve such problems as overcoming the substantial differences between town and countryside and between mental and physical labor. The solution of major economic and social tasks will still further strengthen the political foundation and the material base of the alliance of the working class and the peasantry. The fraternal alliance of the peoples living in our country will be further developed ...

Primary significance is attached to the development of agriculture. The task is set of raising this very important sphere of material production so that the country's requirements for agricultural products may be more fully satisfied. It is planned to raise labor productivity in agriculture on the basis of mechanization, chemicalization and electrification and to bring agriculture step by step up to the level of technical equipment and organization of production that prevails in industry.

The substantial convergence of the rates of growth of the means of production (Group A) and the production of consumer goods (Group B) is an important feature of the coming five-year period.

This is one of the most important economic and political tasks, the fulfillment of which conforms to the interests of millions of people. And the Party, which holds the people's welfare above all else, is giving it a great deal of attention in the new five-year plan.

There was a time when we had to restrict our requirements deliberately in order to achieve high rates of development of heavy industry. Now we have powerful productive forces. They make it possible to develop more quickly the branches of social production that directly satisfy the material, cultural and other needs of the working people. It is this policy of the Party that has been given expression in the five-year plan's provisions for the convergence of the rates of development of the production of means of production and the production of consumer goods, and of the rates of development of agriculture and industry ...

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has always manifested and will continue to manifest concern for the development of literature and the arts. The Party has guided and will guide the activity of the creative organizations and institutions, rendering them all-round support and assistance. The Party opposes administration by fiat and arbitrary decisions on questions of art and literature. At the same time, we are unfailingly guided by the principle of Party spirit in art and a class approach to the evaluation of everything that is done in the sphere of culture. We shall always remember the words of Vladimir Il'ich Lenin that "literary matters must become part of the cause of the entire proletariat."

The Party will always support art and literature that affirms a faith in our ideals and will wage an implacable struggle against all manifestations of an ideology alien to us.

Socialist art is profoundly optimistic and life-affirming. It is able to look perceptively at what is new and progressive in our life and to show vividly and with talent the beauty of the world in which we live, the grandeur of the goals and ideals of the man of the new society. This does not mean, of course, that one must write only about the good things. As is known, there are quite a few difficulties and shortcomings in our country, and truthful criticism of them in works of art is useful and necessary and helps the Soviet people overcome these shortcomings.

Unfortunately, one also encounters those tradesmen in the arts who, instead of helping the people, select as their specialty the denigration of our system and slander against our heroic people. Of course, we have only a handful of such people. In no degree do they express the feelings and thoughts of our creative intelligentsia, which is indissolubly bound to the people and the Party. The renegades do not cherish what is most sacred for every Soviet man-the interests of the socialist homeland. It is perfectly obvious that the Soviet people cannot overlook the disgraceful activity of such individuals. They treat them as they deserve. (Applause.) ...

Our Leninist Communist Party is the guiding and directing force of Soviet society. It unites in its ranks the most advanced representatives of the working class and of all working people and is guided by the militant revolutionary ideology of the working class of the entire world- Marxism- Leninism; it is confidently leading the Soviet people forward along the path of the construction of communism, is channeling and organizing the life of socialist society and is successfully fulfilling the role of teacher, organizer and political leader of the entire Soviet people. (Applause.) The Party's political and organizational work among the masses and the selfless labor of the Soviet people have ensured the further growth of the country's economy and a rise in the well-being of the Soviet people, have made it possible to strengthen our socialist state still more and to increase the international prestige of the Soviet Union.

The October, 1964, plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee, which expressed the Party's unshakable will to develop and strictly observe Leninist norms of Party life and principles of leadership, was an important stage in the life of the Party and the country. On the basis of the decisions of the October plenary session, shortcomings in the sphere of economic and Party construction and errors linked with the unjustified restructuring of Party, soviet, and economic bodies are being corrected.

The October plenary session has exerted a positive influence on all aspects of the life and activity of the Party, the socialist state and the whole of Soviet society. It was a vivid testimonial to the monolithic unity of the Party, Its political maturity and ability to clear away boldly and decisively everything that impedes our advance. (Applause.) The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, armed with the great teaching of Marxism-Leninism, is confidently leading the Soviet people along the road to communism. (Prolonged applause.) ...

The theoretical heritage of Marx, Engels, and Lenin is the greatest wealth of our party and of the entire world Communist movement. It can be said with justice that the strongest and most remarkable feature of our party's entire activity throughout its history has been the creative development of the scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism and its organic combination with the revolutionary practice of the working class and of all the working masses ...

The struggle against bourgeois ideology, revisionism, dogmatism and reformism is of great importance. We must always remember that our class enemy is imperialism. It conducts subversive activities against the socialist system, its principles, ideology and morals. Imperialism's gigantic propaganda apparatus corrupts the individual and tries to divert the masses from politics. The struggle against bourgeois ideology must under all circumstances be uncompromising, for this is a class struggle, a struggle for man, for his dignity and freedom, for a consolidation of the positions of socialism and communism; it is a struggle in the interests of the international working class. (Prolonged applause.) ...

The Soviet people are carrying out the greatest social task in the history of mankind-the building of communism. Tens of millions of people are taking part in the active creative process of construction. We must teach first the majority and then all working people to work as our glorious shock workers and masters of labor are working today. This task is perfectly feasible. Today's shock workers and innovators of production are ordinary people. But they stand out because they have fully mastered technology, because they serve society consciously, display high moral and ethical qualities, a spirit of collectivism, and are carrying out their duties to the people with self-sacrifice and to the fullest of their abilities. These are people of the future, as it were. They work as all people will work under communism. This is of tremendous significance for the success of ideological work. Here is an example, a model that should be followed and from which it is possible to learn. Party organizations are called upon to do all in their power so that every Soviet person may see in the assignments of the new five-year plan a program for his own personal labor and may make a worthy contribution to its fulfillment.

Our party has always attached primary significance to instilling conscious discipline in all members of society. The strengthening of labor discipline and the demand for the unconditional observance of all the laws and rules of socialist society not only do not contradict the democratic principles of the Soviet system, but on the contrary, constitute a condition for the development and expansion of Soviet socialist democratism. The socialist organization of the whole of society for the sake of each individual and the socialist discipline of each individual for the sake of the whole society-such is the substance of socialist democracy. It is the task of the Party constantly to strengthen the high discipline and organization of all links of the Party and the state ...

Source: Current Soviet Policies (New York: F. A. Praeger, 1973), Vol. IV.