Dear comrade delegates,

p Dear members of the Komsomol,

p This Congress of the Lenin Young Communist League is a major occasion in the life of Soviet young people and in the socio-political life of the country as a whole.

p The Central Committee of our Party has commissioned me to convey to the delegates and guests of the 16th Congress of the All-Union Lenin YCL and all young Leninists throughout the country cordial greetings from the Communists of the Soviet Union and wishes of success in your work. (Prolonged applause)

p Only a month ago we commemorated the centenary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. For Soviet young men and women and for the progressive youth of the world Lenin is the unfading ideal of a man, fighter and political leader.

p “History,” Marx wrote, «calls those men the greatest who have ennobled themselves by working for the common good; experience acclaims as happiest the man who has made the greatest number of people happy.” This ideal was embraced by the young Vladimir Ulyanov. Lenin’s impact on the destiny of mankind is immeasurable. The revolutionary reorganisation of the world, to which he dedicated his life, is similarly immeasurable. The age of the Great October Revolution is justifiably known to history as the age of Lenin.

p Under the banner of Lenin our people have won truly magnificent victories. But Lenin taught us not to flatter 308 ourselves with successes but soberly to assess what has been achieved and concentrate on unresolved problems. Allow me to wish your Congress to pass in a spirit of high exactingness and meticulosity in the discussion of the questions uppermost in the minds of young people and to plan the work of the Komsomol for the immediate future in a Leninist, businesslike way.

p Representatives of the glorious multinational army of young fighters for communism have gathered here. Today there are 27 million members in the ranks of the Lenin Komsomol. Twenty-seven million and not the several hundred thousand of half a century ago when Vladimir Ilyich Lenin delivered his historic speech at the 3rd Congress of the Komsomol.

p Looking round this hall shining with young faces one cannot help thinking of what identifies you with the lads and young women who heard Lenin and made a great contribution towards the victory of socialism and the defence of its gains. Like them you are utterly devoted to the cause of communism, prepared for self-sacrifice for the common cause, implacable in your attitude to the imperialists and have the same sense of proletarian class solidarity with millions of working people throughout the world. (Applause.)

p Indeed, you are like them in the main thing, in what comprises the essence of the Soviet character. While for what distinguishes you—education and culture—you owe to your fathers and grandfathers, who blazed the road to the future. (Prolonged applause.)

p Young people value the achievement of their fathers, but today there is as much need as formerly for selflessness, enthusiasm, devotion to ideals and readiness to accomplish a feat. You are called upon to safeguard what has been achieved by your fathers and carry out the grandiose plans of communist construction. This is an honourable, responsible and inspiring task. Believe me, the time will come when your children and grandchildren will envy you, young people of the 1970s, and your deeds and achievements. ( Applause.)

p Time dictates its own laws to people. The young take over from the old. This comes about in the family. And it comes about in society, too. The replacement of generations embraces the joint work of people of different ages, work 309 that is performed hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. For each generation the time comes when it moves into key positions in the life of society. Such a time is coming for you, too. Your senior comrades believe in you and expect further heroic deeds and further labour achievements from you. (Applause.)

p We cannot advance successfully without the participation of young people in the country’s socio-political life. The Soviet Komsomol is an immense force. In its ranks today are workers, students, collective farmers, scientists, cosmonauts and teachers.

p As is emphasised in the greetings of the Central Committee of the CPSU to your Congress, published today, the Party highly values the splendid achievements of the Komsomol, of Soviet young people, their dedicated work for the good of our great motherland. (Applause.) The Party is vitally interested in the utmost development of the social and political activity of young people and continues, as it has always done, to entrust to the Komsomol tasks of a nationwide scale. The present-day Komsomol is capable of carrying out the most complex and most responsible assignments.

p Comrades, you will, of course, discuss in what sectors of communist construction it would be most expedient to concentrate the efforts of the Komsomol today. I should like to state some considerations on this point.

p As you all know, the Soviet economy is entering a new important phase. The technical basis of industry and agriculture is undergoing a radical change. This is introducing many new features into our approach to the fulfilment of national economic tasks and the charting and implementation of economic and technical policy. Practically all the problems of any importance to our social development are now linked with scientific and technological progress.

p It may be said that during the years of the New Economic Policy and the first five-year plans we went through the primary school of socialist economic management. Today we are confronted with tasks of the higher school of the economy of socialism. These are the most intricate and most creative tasks on the road to communism. It falls to you, too, members of the Komsomol, to carry them out under the leadership of the Party. But in order to do this successfully, in order to keep abreast of the age and to keep pace 310 with the rate of scientific and technological progress, the main thing is to master knowledge. Lenin’s injunction «first, to learn, secondly, to learn, and thirdly, to learn» remains an indispensable law of life. (Applause.}

p The Party does everything to make the young builders of communism broadly educated and creatively thinking people. Young people must get it clearly into their heads that there is no limit to the development of science and technology. For that reason one must foster in oneself already at school an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and a keen receptivity for new scientific and technological discoveries.

p Today, after the measures that have been taken by the Party and the Government, a larger number of young workers than before are going to the universities and institutes. Our institutions of higher learning now have a markedly larger contingent of young people from the collective and state farms. The Komsomol has assumed patronage over these young people and is helping them in their studies. This, comrades, is a good and needed venture.

p The Komsomol’s concern to promote creative work in science and technology by young workers also merits every possible support. Competitions in skill by professions have become a tradition. Young turners, tractor-drivers, builders, lathe-operators, milkmaids and cooks are competing in know-how. Hundreds of thousands of young men and women are members of student scientific societies or voluntary design bureaus. A great deal of vivid talent is brought to light at exhibitions of creative work in technology by young people.

p Our agriculture is an important field of activity of young enthusiasts of scientific and technological progress. It goes without saying that the considerable tasks which the Party has set agriculture can only be carried out by technically knowledgeable, trained people who love the land and are devoted to work on the land. We note with satisfaction that the Komsomol has actively responded to the Party’s call to help the rural youth master the technical trades needed so acutely in our countryside.

p The diverse, versatile activity of young rationalisers, inventors and production innovators, who are the true proponents of technical progress, moulds the new type of toiler, the champion of everything that is advanced. The 311 introduction of new progressive ideas always brings to light outstanding scientific and organisational talents and fosters a high sense of exactingness and civic duty. We need people with precisely these qualities.

p The alliance between science, technology and production is the guarantee of our successes during the scientific and technological revolution. (Applause.} You, comrades, are the ones who will have to expand and strengthen that alliance. It is the job of the Komsomol to keep looking for new ways of drawing all young men and women into this extremely important work.

p The Komsomol has always proved by deed its ability to concentrate the efforts of young people in the main directions. We highly value the Komsomol’s patronage of the key projects of our industrial construction. Praise and honour go to the Komsomol for this. (Prolonged applause.}

p However, it is necessary for young people to work with enthusiasm everywhere, in all the vital branches of our immense socialist economy. We usually say that the people building factories, producing coal and oil, building roads and manufacturing modern machinery and equipment are on the front line of communist construction. But no less vital to society is the labour of those who build houses, manufacture consumer goods or work in the services industry. As regards romance, it is to be found in every field of work that is important and needed by the people. It is always with those who are capable of looking at their work in a new way and suggesting a new and better solution. (Applause}

p In short, the Komsomol organisations must keep within their field of vision the entire spectrum of tasks that are set by life—vivid, impressive, and routine, such as may seem to be of minor importance at first sight.

p I should like to draw your attention also to an important economic task like fostering greater thrift and making better use of production reserves.

p Soviet people have created gigantic material values. You must learn to manage them as skilful and far-sighted masters. Under our present scale of production, even a fraction of one per cent of rejects and unjustified waste means immense losses. Lenin’s slogan of thrift, particularly stressed in the Letter of the Party CC, the Government, the AilUnion Central Council of Trade Unions and the Komsomol 312 Central Committee, has had a warm, businesslike response in broad circles of young people and the support of workers, collective farmers and intellectuals. But this is not a matter of one day’s work. Very much remains for all of us to do in this field.

p The creative energy and the healthy critical attitude of young people, which one must likewise be able to support, must be directed towards improving production, everyday life and the conditions for recreation, and towards intolerance of shortcomings, of all kinds of backwardness and manifestations of bureaucracy. (Applause.} It is important to value in young people their knack of carrying out assignments with enthusiasm and their ability to react keenly to shortcomings and surmount them. We must strive to create a spiritual climate in production and in life, in fact in every collective, which would elevate man, reveal his finest capabilities and foster intolerance of anti-social deeds.

p Comrades, the communist education of young people has been and remains the cardinal content of the work of Komsomol organisations. Young men and women are members of the Komsomol during the years when their character is moulded, when their world outlook takes shape and their stand in life is delineated. If during these years you have not learned to work conscientiously, have not acquired a taste for knowledge and have not acquired the ability to distinguish truth from falsity, the real values of life from the imaginary, it will be hard to make up for lost ground.

p We Communists rejoice in the enhanced level of the Marxist-Leninist erudition of young people, in their profound interest for independent study of the works of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The study of revolutionary theory requires immense, painstaking work, but it is gratifying work which enriches man, gives him an understanding of the great tasks of building communism and turns him into a conscious participant of the world revolutionary process. (Prolonged applause.) No effort should be stinted on this work. One must, as Engels said, «constantly keep in mind that socialism, since it has become a science, demands that it be pursued as a science, that is, that it be studied».

p Moreover, in order to become conscious fighters for the cause of communism young men and women must, in addition to acquiring theoretical knowledge, master the vast practical experience accumulated by the preceding 313 generations. The Komsomol is called upon to carry on, enrich and multiply the revolutionary, militant and labour traditions of socialist society. Far from resting content with the old experience, it must move forward under all circumstances. (Prolonged applause.)

p Our young people must be able to wage an offensive struggle against bourgeois ideology. Every member of the Komsomol is an active fighter of the ideological front, a fighter who is uncompromising to all forms of bourgeois influence. In the struggle between bourgeois and socialist ideas there is no room for neutrality or compromise. ( Applause.) We hold sacred Lenin’s behest that there can be no «concessions on matters of theory, programme or banner». [313•1 (Prolonged applause.)

p Soviet young people are morally healthy, active and purposeful. They show energy and enthusiasm in the struggle for the cause of the Party, for the cause of communism. They are young people of a new mould, who have grown up under conditions when socialism had won world positions and is increasingly determining the course of world development. (Applause.) The Party has every reason to be proud of the Soviet youth, of the Lenin Komsomol. (Stormy applause.)

p Comrades, internationalism entered the flesh and blood of the Soviet youth together with the October Revolution. The heroic deeds of the young generations of the Land of Soviets embody not only infinite love of the motherland but also a lofty sense of responsibility for the cause of the international working class, for the ideals of freedom and social justice throughout the world. (Applause.)

p Relations of genuine brotherhood link our young people with the young people of other socialist countries. Those who are today building and fighting as members of Communist Youth Leagues and who will tomorrow reinforce the ranks of the ruling Marxist-Leninist parties will undertake the lofty mission of furthering the unity of the world socialist system and enhancing its role in world development, and there is no doubt that the future of world socialism is in reliable hands. (Applause.)

p We are witnessing a swift upsurge of the youth movement in the capitalist countries. This is palpable evidence 314 of the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism. Young people refuse to reconcile themselves with the system of exploitation, with the sanguinary adventures of imperialism. Powerful actions by young workers, peasants and students, the massive character and offensive spirit of these actions have in recent years become a major factor of the political struggle in the capitalist countries.

p Our Komsomol is doing much to promote friendly ties with the Communist Leagues and other democratic youth organisations in foreign countries. It takes an active part in all the important undertakings and affairs of the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students.

p The Party is confident that the Lenin Komsomol will go on strengthening the internationalist unity of all young fighters against imperialism, for peace, freedom and the socialist future of the peoples. (Stormy, prolonged applause.}

p We are living in an age of a sharp struggle between two social systems on the world scene. Imperialism has not downed arms. The international situation binds us to strengthen the defensive might and combat readiness of the Soviet Armed Forces. This is our sacred duty.

p The army, navy and air force today need people who are educated, ideologically staunch, physically tempered and capable of combining their fathers’ traditions of unbounded courage with consummate knowledge of the most up-to-date military equipment. In the upbringing of such a replenishment for the Soviet Armed Forces an immense role is played by the Komsomol, by its glorious military contingent. ( Applause.} This is one of the principal spheres of the patriotic work of our Komsomol.

p Comrades, all the great labour and military deeds of our young people have been accomplished under the guidance of the Party, which possesses the time-tested Leninist arsenal of forms and methods of Party leadership. Great Lenin taught Communists the ability to lead «by virtue of authority, energy, greater experience, greater versatility, and greater talent».

p Efficiency, constructive criticism and principled attitudes combined with conscious and, therefore, firm discipline are the features of the Leninist style characteristic of the life and work of our Party. Our Komsomol, too, is learning this from the Party. (Applause.} The strength of Soviet young 315 people lies in their unbreakable link with the cause of the Party. (Prolonged applause}

p The Party Central Committee is confident that your Congress will be instrumental in furthering the initiative of the Komsomol organisations, in mobilising the country’s young people for new glorious achievements. There is no doubt that the Lenin Komsomol will further unite its ranks round the Party and still more vigorously help to educate the rising generation in a spirit of boundless devotion to the people and to the ideals of communism. (Prolonged applause.}

p We are confident that everywhere and in everything the Komsomol will be equal to the tasks set by the Party and that it will continue to be its reliable mainstay in the struggle for communism. (Stormy applause}

p Long live the glorious Lenin Komsomol! (Stormy applause}

p Long live the Soviet youth! (Stormy, prolonged applause.}

p May our great multinational motherland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, live long and flourish! (Stormy, prolonged applause.}

p Under the leadership of the Communist Party forward to the triumph of communism! (Stormy, prolonged applause. All rise. The delegates and guests chant: «To the Communist Party—glory, glory, glory!”, «Glory to the CPSU!”, «To the Great Party of Lenin—Hurrah!”, «Lenin Is With Us!”, «To the Leninist Central Committee— glory!”, «To the Leninist Party—Hurrah!”. Cheers fill the Kremlin Palace of Congresses.}
316

p SPEECH AT THE 10th CONGRESS
OF THE HUNGARIAN SOCIALIST
WORKERS’ PARTY

p November 24, 1970

p Esteemed delegates to the Congress. Dear comrades. The delegation from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union expresses its heartfelt gratitude for this opportunity to participate in the work of your Congress.

p On behalf of the 14-million-strong body of Communists of the Soviet Union and of all Soviet working people we convey cordial fraternal greetings to the delegates to the 10th Congress of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, the Hungarian Communists and the whole Hungarian people. (Applause.)

p We highly value this opportunity to attend your Party’s Congress not only as a great honour but also as an important form of cooperation between fraternal Parties and of reciprocal enrichment with experience. It is precisely in the working atmosphere of a congress that one becomes fully aware of the affairs and cares of comrades in the joint struggle and comes into direct contact with the creative process of collectively working out decisions on the cardinal problems of further socialist construction.

p We heard the report of the Central Committee of the HSWP delivered by Comrade Janos Kadar with close attention and interest. The analysis given in the report of the results of the work and development of socialist Hungary for four years convincingly shows that what the Hungarian Communists had planned at their 9th Congress has now become reality.

p The achievements of the Hungarian Communists and of all the working people of socialist Hungary, the new 317 prospects charted by you and the successes of other fraternal countries are further testimony of socialism’s immense potentialities when the Party of Communists firmly and consistently implements its leading role in society. The Party rallies and combines the efforts of the working class, the peasants and the intelligentsia. It shows sure ways of achieving the set aims, being steadfastly guided by the general laws of socialist construction and taking the national and historical specifics of its country into account.

p Extensive and truly creative work is carried on by the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party and its Central Committee, headed by Comrade Janos Kadar, devoted son of the Hungarian people and an outstanding and esteemed figure of the international communist and working-class movement. (Prolonged applause.)

p We, Soviet Communists, are well aware of the efforts of our Hungarian comrades to enhance the efficacy of their country’s economy and further strengthen socialist ownership. We know of your Party’s striving to make the fullest use of the advantages of the socialist mode of production and combine centralised planning with economic incentives. We also know that the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party is consistently steering a line aimed at promoting socialist democracy. It constantly gives much of its attention to the communist education of the working people, and wages an unflagging struggle against bourgeois ideology and against Right and Left distortions of Marxist-Leninist theory. This principled approach to the solution of the key problems of the development of socialist society has the full understanding of the Communists of the Soviet Union and is highly appraised by them.

p We regard it as an extremely important reiteration of the bonds of unbreakable cohesion and militant revolutionary solidarity that traditionally unite our Parties.

p Comrades, all of us know perfectly well that the struggle for socialism and communism requires the solution of many difficult problems. Every new phase in the development of socialist and communist construction sets our Parties its own complex problems. This is a natural dialectical process. Communists do not look for an easy life. They always boldly move further forward. Further convincing proof of this is Comrade Kadar’s report and the entire atmosphere at your Congress. The same may be said of the work of the 318 Communist Party of the Soviet Union and of the fraternal Parlies of other socialist countries.

p The main thing, comrades, is that the Communists of the socialist countries have all the necessary conditions for successfully resolving the problems arising out of the presentday phase of our social development.

p The Soviet Union, the Hungarian People’s Republic and other socialist countries have the historic mission of being in the front ranks of the builders of the new world, the shoots of which are today sprouting everywhere. On the international scene an unabating sharp class struggle is going on between working people and exploiters, between the forces of socialism, freedom, peace and progress and the forces of imperialist reaction, oppression and aggression.

p The front of this struggle is enormously broad, the struggle itself being waged in various forms, peaceful and nonpeaceful. Our persevering day-to-day work, the struggle of the working people of the capitalist countries for social emancipation and the offensive of the peoples on colonialism and neocolonialism are all links of a single chain of great class battles, in which the better morrow of the whole of mankind is born.

p Our greatest common possession is the existence of the world socialist system, which is confidently developing and steadily growing stronger. The socialist community in Europe currently has a powerful economic potential. It has a highly-developed industry, a steadily progressing agriculture and vast resources of raw materials. The Soviet Union, People’s Hungary and other socialist countries have fine cadres of workers, technicians, engineers and scientists, dedicated fighters for the building of the new society who are capable of carrying out the biggest and most complex tasks of economic, scientific and technological progress.

p We have a splendid means which helps to accelerate the development of the socialist countries. This is our mutual support, mutual assistance and the practice of socialist internationalism, when the achievements of each socialist country benefit all, while the achievements of all benefit each member of the family of socialist states.

p There are full grounds for saying that in recent years the attention of the fraternal Parties has been centred on enhancing the efficacy of the cooperation among the socialist 319 countries. In the economy, in politics, in ideology and in matters ol defence we have been coordinating our ellorls more and more closely.

p In the economic field an important stage in raising the level of such cooperation was the recent coordination between the GMEA countries of their economic development plans for 1971–1975. The members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance have considerable experience of cooperating in carrying out major economic projects. But today we all see the need and possibility for raising the economic cooperation among the socialist countries to a new, qualitatively higher level. The key problem towards whose solution our active joint efforts are presently directed is the development of socialist, economic integration. Economic integration with the active utilisation of the achievements of scientific and technological progress is our common line and we are confident that it will bring the socialist countries to new successes and still further consolidate the positions of world socialism in the world economy.

p During recent years the CPSU, the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party and other fraternal Parties, and the governments of our countries have done much to achieve a still further consolidation of our political cooperation and strengthen the Warsaw Treaty Organisation. It seems to me that we have every reason for giving a positive assessment of the work that has been done.

p We now have adopted the good practice of consulting each other on pressing problems. This enables us to coordinate our actions on the international scene and, at the same time, to strengthen the foreign political position of each member of the Warsaw Treaty.

p Our common achievement is the considerable enhancement of the efficacy of the allied armed forces. The largescale military exercises that have been held in recent years have shown the high level of cooperation and military training of the friendly armies of the Warsaw Treaty and their ability to carry out the most intricate military tasks. Moreover, they have given further confirmation that our brotherhood-in-arms is a reliable means of curbing any aggressor. For more than 15 years the military and political alliance of the socialist states has been effectively serving the interests of socialism and the interests of European and world security. It helps all of us to ensure favourable external 320 conditions for the building of socialism and communism. It is a prime factor of lasting peace in Europe and beyond it.

p We are full of optimism when we speak of the common prospects of the world socialist system, of our morrow. In the struggle for the ideals of the working class, for the ideals of the working masses we have a tested weapon. This weapon is Marxist-Leninist theory. Founded on an analysis and account of the general laws of historical development and alien to pre-set patterns and fossilised dogmas, it is constantly enriched by the revolutionary practice of the socialist states and the many-sided experience of the world communist, working-class and national liberation movement. The attempts of the bourgeois ideologists and their revisionist menials from both the Right and “Left” to steer the builders of socialism and communism away from the correct path and envelop them in a smoke-screen of provocative fabrications, demagogy and falsification are getting a worthy rebuff from the Communists. The fidelity of the Communist and Workers’ Parties to Marxism-Leninism is the iron-clad guarantee of our further victories.

p Southeast Asia, where with the support of the socialist countries and the progressive forces of the whole world the peoples of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are upholding their freedom and independence with arms in hand against the imperialists and their puppets, remains an area of bitter battles. The Middle East, where the imperialists, who are using the Israeli aggressors, would like to put an end to the independence of the Arab states, reverse the social development of those states that have chosen the road of progress and return them to the status of countries dependent on and exploited by international capital and its henchmen, is an important sector of the worldwide front of the liberation struggle. The struggle for genuine independence and social progress is gaining momentum in the Latin American countries. In the imperialist citadels themselves—the United States of America, Britain, Italy, Japan and other capitalist countries—the class battles are growing sharper and reaching an unprecedented scale with the working class more and more resolutely declaring its rights and interests.

p The European continent is today an area of active struggle and interaction between the two opposing systems. The socialist countries are coming forward as active champions of lasting peace and security for all the peoples of Europe 321 and pressing for the practical implementation of the principle of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems in our continent. It is our common opinion that this policy is consistent with the interests of the revolutionary forces fighting for socialism and democracy, with the interests of all peoples.

p Today nobody can any longer deny the huge positive role which the mighty community of socialist countries plays in the international life of present-day Europe. The policy of the socialist countries has been the chief of the factors that have helped to secure a notable improvement of the political climate in Europe in recent years.

p A considerable achievement of the policy of the socialist countries, a policy founded on the Leninist principles of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, has been the development of mutually beneficial cooperation of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries with France and some other West European states. These relations serve the cause of peace and the relaxation of tension in Europe and the rest of the world.

p A result of the long-standing coordinated, principled policy of our community and the realistic position adopted by the new government of the Federal Republic of Germany—evidently not without the pressure of the mood of broad sections of the population of that country—has also been the conclusion of a treaty between the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic of Germany and the recent initialling of a treaty between the Polish People’s Republic and the FRG. These documents are founded on a clear recognition of the real state of affairs in Europe, a situation that had taken shape as a result of the liberation struggle of the peoples during the Second World War. They create excellent prerequisites for furthering peaceful coexistence between the European states in many spheres and, at the same time, safeguard the legitimate interests of the German Democratic Republic and other socialist countries.

p It was precisely the countries of the socialist community which put forward the idea of convening a European security conference, an idea that has been favourably received by most of the European countries and is now making its way towards its practical realisation.

p All these and many other major foreign policy actions are—this must be re-emphasised—the result of the joint, 322 coordinated policy of the socialist countries. The stronger our unity and the closer our actions are coordinated the greater will be our successes in foreign policy in the interests of each of our countries, in the interests of world socialism and in the interests of all the democratic and peace-loving forces.

p Comrades, our Party highly values the active foreign policy of the Hungarian People’s Republic and the genuinely internationalist activity of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. The Communists of very many countries gratefully note the active role played by our Hungarian friends in the preparations for the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. That Meeting, held, as you all know, in 1969, was a major event in our movement. It helped to cement the communist ranks and secure a further upsurge of the anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle of the working masses. This struggle is moving from victory to victory in all parts of the globe. Step by step the revolutionary forces of modern times—the world socialist system, the working class and the national liberation movement—are pressing imperialism.

p Dear comrades, considerable achievements have been attained by the Communists, above all by the Communists of socialist countries, in the creative work of building the new society, in the moulding of the new man and in the noble struggle for the highest interests of the working people of all countries. But we know that ahead of us there still are many difficulties, much work and many battles. In our work within our own countries and on the international scene our reliable compass remain Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s immortal words:

p “The class struggle is continuing; it has merely changed its forms. It is the class struggle of the proletariat to prevent the return of the old exploiters___ The class struggle is continuing and it is our task to subordinate all interests to that struggle. Our communist morality is also subordinated to that task. We say: morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting system and to unite all the working people around the proletariat, which is building up a new, a communist society.» [322•1

p We, members of the delegation from the Communist 323 Party of the Soviet Union, are grateful for the warm words addressed to our Party from the rostrum of this Congress by Comrade Janos Kadar. I should like to assure you that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union considers that its highest duty has been and remains to continue, in concert with all fraternal Parties, to strengthen the unity of the socialist countries in the common struggle for our MarxistLeninist ideals.

p Today the Soviet people live and work on the eve of an important event in the life of the country—the 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. We shall have excellent achievements to show at the Congress. The task set by the preceding 23rd Congress of the CPSU is being successfully fulfilled. As a result of the dedicated labour of Soviet people there has been a further advance of the country’s economy and a considerable rise of the standard of living. Soviet science and technology have been successfully developing during these years. Striking testimony of this is the brilliant success of history’s first experiment in landing an automatic explorer on the Moon, the Lunokhod-1, which was created by Soviet people.

p At present, in charting the plans for the coming period, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union strives, as it has always done, to tie them in closely with our common internationalist tasks. We are certain that the coming years will witness further achievements by the socialist community, and for our part we are fully determined to do our utmost for the triumph of our common cause.

p In conclusion, I should like to wish the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party and all the working people of fraternal Hungary further successes in socialist construction, in the promotion of industry, agriculture, science, culture, education and the national welfare. From the bottom of our hearts we wish you every success in carrying out the big tasks outlined by the 10th Congress of the HSWP.

p In token of the long-standing, durable friendship between the Soviet and Hungarian Communists and the peoples of our countries, and of the militant revolutionary traditions of this friendship, allow me, dear comrades, to turn over to the Congress a gift from the Central Committee of our Party, a painting by the Soviet artist Kuznetsov entitled «Long Live the Revolution!» (Stormy, prolonged applause)

p The painting portrays Vladimir Ilyich Lenin speaking in 324 Moscow’s Red Square on May 25, 1919 during a parade in honour of the Day of Universal Military Training. Standing next to Lenin on that day was an envoy of the Hungarian revolution, Comrade Tibor Szamuely, Commissar of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and in his speech Lenin warmly greeted him. In those formidable times our peoples were together in the struggle against world capitalism. Today they are together building a new world. Together they will arrive at a bright future—at communism.

p Long live the close, unbreakable friendship between the Soviet Union and People’s Hungary and the fraternal militant alliance of the Soviet and Hungarian Communists! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p Long live the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, vanguard of the working people and leader and organiser of socialist construction! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p May the solidarity, unity and cooperation of the socialist countries, the communist movement and all anti-imperialist forces grow stronger! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p Long live peace and communism! (Stormy, prolonged applause. All rise.)

Enviado por Enrique Ibañes