Sixth Congress of Soviets of the USSR

a congress held from Mar. 8 to Mar 17, 1931, in Moscow. The congress was attended by 2,403 delegates, 1,570 of whom were voting delegates. Industrial workers made up 54.4 percent of those in attendance, peasants, 25.6 percent, and nonindustrial workers, 20 percent. Of the delegates, 72.8 percent were ACP(B) members, 2.4 percent were Komsomol members, and 24.8 percent were not party affiliated. The congress represented 66 nationalities.

The agenda of the congress included several reports. V. M. Molotov delivered the report of the government of the USSR, and Ia. A. Iakovlev, the report on sovkhoz development from the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR, the Grain Trust, and the livestock-sovkhoz trusts. Iakovlev also presented the report on kolkhoz development from the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR, the All-Union Council of Kolkhozes, and the All-Union Center for Machine-tractor Stations, and A. S. Enukidze addressed the congress on questions pertaining to the Constitution of the USSR.

The congress approved in its entirety the foreign and domestic policy of the Soviet government. It directed the government to continue to adhere unswervingly to a policy of peace and to strengthen relations with other nations. In view of the growing threat of war, however, the congress called upon the government to increase the defense capability of the country in every way possible.

The congress devoted considerable attention to issues of the socialist reorganization of agriculture. The decree On Sovkhoz Development emphasized the importance of the sovkhozes as large, model farms from which the kolkhozes would receive various kinds of assistance. The decree On Kolkhoz Development summarized the results of the mass kolkhoz movement of 1929 and 1930 and called for the elimination of deficiencies in the organization and operation of the kolkhozes. The congress noted that the agricultural artel was the “fundamental structure in the kolkhoz movement in the current stage of development.” It also approved the government’s decision to eliminate okrugs, or districts, and to establish the raion as the basic unit of operation in the socialist reconstruction of rural areas.

In the election of a new Central Executive Committee, 473 members were voted into the Union Soviet, and 138 members, into the Soviet of Nationalities.