In 1930, the Sixteenth Party Congress resolved to admit foreign engineers, foremen, and skilled workers in order to staff Soviet plants in connection with the five-year plan, setting a ceiling of 40,000 foreign workers and specialists. Subsequently, thousands of foreign workers and specialists were recruited from countries struggling with high unemployment in order to teach Soviet workers modern techniques of industry. The Amtorg Trading Corporation, the Soviet Union’s trade representation in the United States, announced it had received more than 100,000 appeals for immigration in 8 months in 1931; the socialist newspaper Die Rote Fahne reported more than a million Western workers had requested to go to Russia in that same year. Hundreds of specialists in a range of fields were recruited by Soviet programs in contracts for one, two, or three year periods. However, due to the high demand and the priorities of the five-year plan, only very skilled workers, specialists, or people with instruments or machinery were allowed in.