Opened the 22nd Congress of the CPSU in Kremlin

The 22nd Congress of the CPSU was held in Moscow from February 14 to 25, 1956. It was attended by 1349 delegates, 81 of them with an advisory vote, they represented 6 795 896 party members and 419,609 candidate members. The structure of the congress delegates (with an advisory vote) by occupation - 438 delegates are directly engaged in the production, including 251 people who worked in industry and transport , and 187 in agriculture; by age - 40 years to 20.3% from 40 to 50 years, 55.7 % over 50 years 24 %; Education - 758 delegates with higher education, 116 incomplete higher and 169 with secondary education , i.e. about 80 % of the delegates with higher education, incomplete higher and secondary education; on the party seniority - 22 delegates joined the party before the Great October socialist Revolution, 60 delegates in 1917-20 , 24, 9 % of the delegates in 1921-30 , 34 % in 1931-1940, 21.6 % in 1941-45 , 13.4% in 1946 and later . The delegates that were elected on the congress - 193 women (14.2 % of all delegates). There were 60 Heroes of the Soviet Union and 95 Heroes of Socialist Labor among the delegates to the congress. The congress was attended by delegations of communist and workers' parties from 55 foreign countries. Agenda: The report of the Central Committee of the CPSU (Rapporteur N.S. Khrushchev); report of the Central Auditing Commission of the CPSU (Rapporteur P.G. Moskatov); Directive of the 20th Congress of the CPSU for the 6th Five-Year Economic Development Plan of the USSR in 1956 - 60 (reporter Bulganin); Election of central organs of the party. The 20th Congress considered the question of overcoming the cult of Stalin's personality and its consequences. Thus, the adopted resolution approved the work of the Central Committee on restoring the Leninist norms in the party life, the development of inner-party democracy. The Congress proposed that CC should consistently implement measures to ensure the complete overcoming of the cult of personality, which was not equal to Marxism and Leninism, the elimination of its consequences in all areas of party, state and ideological works, strict observance of the Leninist norms of Party life and the principle of collective leadership. In their criticism of the cult of personality, the party used the principles of the Marxism and Leninism on the role of the masses, the party and the individual in history, the inadmissibility of the cult of personality , no matter how great his merits. Shortly after the 20th Congress, a special decree of the CPSU Central Committee "On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences" was published on June 30, 1956. The Decisions of the Congress were approved supported by the Communist Party, the Soviet people the fraternal Communist and workers' parties. Lit.: 20th Congress of the CPSU. The verbatim report, 1-2, Moscow, 1956. L.N. Bychkov. Source: The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969 – 1978