In the period between the 20th and 21st Party Congresses, thirteen plenary sessions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were held, although only twelve can be documented from official sources. These meetings of the CC elected at the February, 1956, meeting, more numerous than for any comparable time interval in party history, not only provided the background for the first extraordinary (vneocherednoj) Congress in more than four decades; they also furnished the forums and tribunals at which all the important issues subsequently referred to the Congress for formal post facto approval had been initially presented and, for for the most part, resolved. Nevertheless, as M. Suslov pointed out, the January 27-February 5 meeting was “not a regular Party Congress, which explains why no Central Committee report was heard.” Yet despite A. Mikoyan's reminder that the delegates had "assembled … to discuss the single question on the agenda—the control figures" of the seven-year plan, Khrushchev's 67,000-word, seven-hour long address and the eighty-five shorter contributions dealt with developments of the intervening three years and prospects for the future.