First All-Union Congress of Shock Brigades

a congress held in Moscow Dec. 5–10, 1929. It was convoked at the request of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, the USSR High Council of the National Economy, the Central Committee of the Komsomol, and the newspaper Pravda.

The congress was preceded by conferences of shock workers on the krai, oblast, and okrug level. More than 1,000 delegates attended the congress. V. V. Kuibyshev delivered the High Council of the National Economy’s report on progress in industrial development and the tasks of socialist emulation; G. D. Veinberg presented the Central Council of Trade Unions’ report on the development of socialist emulation and the tasks of the shock brigades; and P. P. Segal presented the Central Committee of the Komsomol’s report on new forms of organization of labor. Among those who spoke at the congress were N. K. Krupskaia, N. M. Shvernik, and Academician A. N. Bakh.

The congress had organizational subdivisions for metalworkers, mine workers, railroad workers, textile workers, chemical workers, and agricultural workers. The congress assessed the results of socialist emulation during 1929 and adopted a resolution entitled “Industry, Emulation, and the Shock Brigades.” It also issued an appeal to all the workers of the USSR to fulfill the five-year plan in four years, expand socialist emulation, join the shock brigades, go forward from the shock brigades to model shock-work enterprises, and take the lead in accomplishing the socialist transformation of the countryside.