Allow me, first of all, to greet the delegates assembled for the Party Congress on behalf of the Central Committee of the RCP.

Comrades, we are opening the next Party Congress at a moment of the highest importance. The internal development of our revolution has led to the greatest and most rapid victories over our enemy in the civil war, and owing to the international situation, these victories have proved to be nothing other than the victory of the Soviet revolution in the first country to accomplish this revolution, in the weakest and most backward country, victory over world capitalism and imperialism united against us. And after these victories we can now proceed with calm and firm confidence to the next tasks of peaceful economic construction, with the confidence that the present Congress will sum up the experience of more than two years of Soviet work and will be able to use the lessons acquired for solving the impending, more difficult and complex task of economic construction. And as far as our international position is concerned, it has never been as favorable as it is now, and what especially fills us with joy and vigor is the news which we receive every day from Germany and which shows that, however difficult and painful may be the birth of the socialist revolution, the proletarian Soviet power in Germany is growing irrepressibly. German Kornilovism has played the same role in Germany as it did in Russia. After Kornilovism, a turn toward working-class power has begun, not only among the masses of urban workers, but also in the rural proletariat of Germany, and this turn has worldwide historical significance. It gives us not only once again and again absolute confirmation of the correctness of our path, it gives us the confidence that the time is not far off when we shall walk hand in hand with a German Soviet government. (Applause.)

I declare the Congress open and request that we proceed to the election of the Presidium.