Fourteenth All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers, Peasants, and

a congress held in Moscow from May 10 to May 18,1929. The congress was attended by 1,158 voting delegates and 626 with observer status. Industrial workers made up 57.1 percent of the delegates, peasants, 25 percent, and nonindustrial workers, 17.9 percent. Of the delegates, 70.7 percent were members or candidate members of the ACP(B),1.2 percent were members or candidate members of the Komsomol, and 28.1 percent were not party affiliated.

The agenda of the congress included elections to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and a series of reports. A. I. Rykov gave the report of the government of the RSFSR, A. I. Lezhava spoke on the five-year plan for the development of the republic’s economy, and A. V. Lunacharskii dealt with the tasks of cultural construction. In addition, A. B. Khalatov spoke on the state of Soviet book publication after ten years, A. S. Kiselev reported on lower-echelon soviets and the strengthening of their powers, and Ia. V. Poluian explained changes in and additions to the Constitution of the RSFSR.

The congress approved the activities of the government of the RSFSR and adopted the first five-year plan for the development of the economy of the RSFSR (1929–32). After making a positive assessment of the country’s accelerated rate of industrialization, the congress enjoined the government to intensify its efforts in the socialist reorganization of agriculture. The congress appealed to urban and rural working people to help fulfill the five-year plan and to promote socialist competition in every way possible. In a resolution concerning cultural construction, the congress emphasized the need to pay special attention to the work of implementing universal compulsory elementary education and of eliminating illiteracy among the adult population.

The program for the socialist reconstruction of the economy required improved functioning of government bodies, especially at the local level. The congress called upon the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to reexamine the Statute on Rural Soviets for the purpose of broadening their powers in organizational, economic, and cultural work as well as in serving the everyday needs of the peasantry. The congress directed the Central Executive Committee to devise measures to combat breaches of revolutionary legality and to put an end to the terrorist activities of the kulaks.

A resolution was passed recommending that soviet agencies be purged of alien elements and that new cadres be formed from among workers, farmhands, the poor, and party-minded middle peasants. The congress amended several articles of the Constitution of the RSFSR to reflect the completion of regionalization, the introduction of new administrative and territorial divisions, and the expansion of the powers of the local soviets. A new All-Russian Central Executive Committee was elected, with 400 members and 150 candidate members.