The article examines the organization of the process of accounting, training and retraining of national personnel in the Lower Volga region during the period of the first five-year plan, when the success of economic, economic and political campaigns carried out in the country was largely determined by the intensification of efforts in the field of training personnel for the party and state apparatus. As practice shows, the authorities were ableto achieve a systematic accounting of personnel inthe system of Soviet and party bodies only in 1929–1930 – in conditions of regionalization and systemicmovements, itturned outto be difficultto generate data onthe reserve of leading personnel. A serious problem inthe process of organizing training and retraining of personnel was the low starting level of education of employees (the exception was the German and Ukrainian population of the region). At the same time, the campaign to eliminate illiteracy carried out in the region did not qualitatively change the situation – and at the end of the five-year plan, the percentage of simply literate Soviet and party cadres, often without special education, will remain high.