16th Party Conference of the VKP(b) (April 1929)
제16차 전연방공산당(볼셰비키) 협의회 (1929년 4월)
The 16th All-Union Conference of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), held in Moscow from 23 to 29 April 1929. 254 voting delegates and 679 consultative delegates attended. The central agenda item was the adoption of the First Five-Year Plan, reported by Alexei Rykov, Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, and Valerian Kuibyshev. The conference approved the 'optimal' variant of the plan and officially condemned the Right Opposition.
In depth
Background
The 16th Conference was the only all-union party conference held between the 15th Party Congress (December 1927) and the 16th Party Congress (June 1930). Since autumn 1928, Gosplan had been drafting two variants of the five-year plan: a 'starting' (minimum) variant and an 'optimal' variant, the latter deemed achievable only in the absence of adverse international conditions or crop failures.
Agenda
- Five-Year Plan: Reports by Rykov, Krzhizhanovsky, and Kuibyshev. The conference adopted the 'optimal' variant, calling for a 350% increase in industrial output.
- Agriculture and Tax Relief for the Middle Peasant: Report by Mikhail Kalinin. Endorsed expansion of kolkhozes and Machine-Tractor Stations (MTS), and foreshadowed the liquidation of the kulaks as a class.
- Fight Against Bureaucratism: Report by Yakov Yakovlev. Framed bureaucratic distortions in the state apparatus as a form of class struggle.
- Party Membership Verification: Report by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky. Approved a general purge of party members and candidates; subsequently about 8% of the membership was expelled.
- Intra-Party Affairs: Vyacheslav Molotov reported the decisions of the April Joint Plenum. The conference condemned the Right Opposition of Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky and removed them from key posts.
Outcome
The conference marked the decisive turn toward Stalin's 'revolution from above': rapid industrialization and forced collectivization. The Five-Year Plan was formally ratified at the 5th Congress of Soviets in May 1929. Immediately afterwards, the Central Committee plenum removed Nikolai Uglanov from all his posts.
Sources
- Wikipedia (RU) Primary factual base: dates, delegate counts, agenda, resolutions, condemnation of the Right Opposition
- rus.team Adoption of optimal variant, struggle against Right deviation, collectivization measures, tax policy, Molotov's report
- docs.historyrussia.org Archival bibliographic record confirming the conference resolution 'On the Five-Year Plan for the Development of the National Economy', April 1929, published in Решения партии и правительства по хозяйственным вопросам, Т. 2 (1967)