Twelfth All-Russian Congress of Soviets

held in Moscow on May 7–16, 1925. There were 1,634 delegates in attendance, including 1,084 with deciding votes. Among the delegates were 1,292 Communists.

The congress discussed the reports of the People’s Commissariat of Health (N. A. Semashko), the People’s Commissariat of Finances (N. A. Miliutin), and the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture (A. I. Sviderskii), as well as a report on changing the text of the Constitution of the RSFSR (D. I. Kurskii) and on the Turkestan ASSR’s leaving the RSFSR and the formation of Turkmen and Uzbek Union republics (A. S. Kiselev). An All-Russian Central Executive Committee was elected. Upon the proposal of the group from the RCP (Bolshevik), the report of the government of the RSFSR was omitted from the agenda, since the entire body of this All-Russian Congress could take part in the Third Congress of the Soviets of the USSR (1925), the agenda of which included the report of the government of the USSR.

The congress approved the foreign and domestic policies of the government of the RSFSR; it noted the successes achieved by industry and agriculture; it outlined a program of measures designed to develop agriculture further (decreasing the standardized agricultural tax by 40 percent and so on); it adopted a resolution to increase state appropriations for improving medical and sanitary affairs in the national republics and oblasts, as well as a resolution on educating national staffs of medical employees. The congress approved the decree passed by the second session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee at its eleventh convocation on Oct. 14, 1924, on granting the Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kirghiz, the Tad-zhiks, who lived in Turkestan, the right to leave the Turkestan ASSR and form new, soviet socialist republics and oblasts based on nationality. The congress also ratified the new Constitution of the RSFSR.