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Gosplan

 

Central board that supervised various aspects of the planned economy of the former Soviet Union. The name is an abbreviation of the Russian for "State Planning Committee." Established in 1921, Gosplan originally advised the government but assumed a more comprehensive planning role in 1928, when the First Five-Year Plan was adopted in an effort to bring about rapid industrialization and collectivization. Throughout the existence of the Soviet Union it was responsible for translating general economic objectives outlined by the Communist Party into specific national plans. See also command economy, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

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Gosplan SSSR (Gosudarstvenny planovy komitet SSSR - the State Planning Committee of the USSR), the core state committee of the Soviet economic bureaucracy, was created in 1921. During the first Five-Year Plan (1928 - 1932) Valerian Kuybyshev headed Gosplan. Gosplan was responsible for executing the directives of the Council of Ministries, translating general directives into operational plans for the ministries, and advising the Council of Ministries on a wide range of issues. Gosplan planned for the ministries, not for enterprises, although some large enterprises were planned directly by Gosplan. Gosplan communicated extensively with the ministries in the process of drafting the plan. It was subdivided into industrial departments, such as coal, ferrous metals, and machine building, and also had summary departments, such as finance, to deal with functions that crossed functional bodies. The early recognition of Gosplan's importance came in 1925 and 1926, when it began to prepare the annual preliminary plan targets, or so-called control figures. During the 1930s the principle of guidance of economic policy on an annual basis was established, although much publicity was devoted to nonoperational five-year plans. Annual plans, including production and financial targets, so-called promfinplany, were drawn up sector by sector. By 1926 and 1927, promfinplany that were originated by ministries became dependent on the control figures. Formally, the plan era began in 1928 with the First Five-Year Plan for intensive economic growth. The Five-Year Plan was a comprehensive plan that set the major economic goals for a five-year period. The five-year goals were not put into operation in the shorter-term operational plans. Once the Soviet regime stipulated the plan figures, all levels of the economy from individual enterprises to the national level were theoretically obliged to meet those goals ("The plan is the law"). During the period from 1928 to 1932, the basic principles of Soviet planning were established. Gosplan was to be the central coordinating body to which all other planning bodies were to submit their proposals. The control figures would provide the general direction for the economy. The actual detailed operational plans for enterprises (promfinplany) were to conform to the control figures. Materials were to be allocated through a system of balances, which would elaborate the sources and uses of basic industrial materials. The long-term planning horizon was set at five years, the average period required for the completion of investment projects. Operational plans were prepared in cooperation with the planning departments of ministries, the most important of which were the all-union ministries. In day-to-day operations, inter-ministry cooperation was limited in such matters as equipment delivery and construction planning. Soviet law gave Gosplan substantial responsibilities concerning supply planning. Gosplan was charged with preparing and confirming plans for the distribution of production among ministries. It was Gosplan who prepared general material limits (limityu) for the ministries. Later these material limits would be broken down into product profiles by the State Committee for Material Technical Supply, Gossnab, which was formed in 1947 to assist in supply planning. Gosplan remained the primary planning body of the Soviet Union until its collapse in December 1991.

Bibliography

Gregory, Paul R., and Stuart, Robert C. (2001). Russian and Soviet Economic Performance and Structure. Boston, MA: Addison Wesley.

Hewett, Edward A. (1988). Reforming the Soviet Economy: Equality Versus Efficiency. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

—PAUL R. GREGORY

Gosplan or State Planning Committee (Russian: Госпла́н, Russian pronunciation: [ɡɐsˈplan]) was the committee responsible for economic planning in the Soviet Union. The word "Gosplan" is an abbreviation for Gosudarstvenniy Komitet po Planirovaniyu (Russian: Государственный комитет по планированию, State Committee for Planning). One of its main duties was the creation of Five-Year Plans.

Contents

History

The agency was formed on 22 February 1921 as the "RSFSR State Planning Commission", by decree of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic's Sovnarkom. The GOELRO plan, the first large-scale Soviet plan to recover the Russian economy, was first to test Gosplan. After the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR State Planning Commission of the USSR Council of Labour and Defence (СТО СССР, Совет Труда и Обороны СССР) was established on 21 August 1923. The abbreviation "Gosplan" has been used since 1921.

Initially Gosplan had an advisory function. Its primary objective was the co-ordination of the economic plans of Union republics and the creation of the common Union plan. During 1925 Gosplan started creating annual economic plans, known as "control numbers" (контрольные цифры).

Its work was coordinated with the USSR Central Statistical Directorate (центральное статистическое управление СССР), the Narkomat of Finance, and the All-Union Council of State Economy (ВСНХ), and later with Gosbank and Gossnab.

With the introduction of five year plans in 1928, Gosplan became responsible for their creation and supervision according to the objectives declared by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

During 1930 the Statistical Directorate was merged into Gosplan, and on 3 February 1931 Gosplan was resubordinated to the Sovnarkom.

During May 1955 Gosplan was divided into two commissions: the USSR Council of Ministers State Commission for Advanced Planning (Государственная комиссия СМ СССР по перспективному планированию, USSR Gosplan), and the USSR Council of Ministers Economic Commission on Current Planning (Государственнaая экономическая комиссия СМ СССР по текущему планированию народного хозяйства, Госэкономкомиссия СССР). These were, respectively, tasked with predictive and immediate planning. The work of the latter was based on the five-year plans delivered by Gosplan, with Gosplan planning 10–15 years ahead.

Gosplan was headquartered at the building now occupied by the State Duma, in Moscow.

Regionalisation Commission

During May 1921, with the introduction of the New Economic Policy, Gosplan's Council of Labour and Defense established the Regionalisation Committee, tasked with developing a plan for the economic-administrative organisation of the RSFSR. Composed largely of technical staff - professional engineers and economists from imperialist times, it was directed by Ivan Gavrilovich Alexandrov, former member of the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia, but not however a member of the Bolshevik Party. The commission examined alternatives of ethno-territorial regionalisation, discussing the topic with the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, the Central Statistical Directorate and the Supreme Soviet (VTsIK) Administrative Commission.[1]

Method of Material Balances

The introduction of the first five year plan in 1928 led to a re-examination of the roles of Gosplan and VSNKh, the supreme state organization for management of the economy at this time. This re-examination of roles was required because VSNKh itself also had responsibility for planning through the Industrial Planning Commission (Promplan). Re-examination of roles was also required as the introduction of the first five year plan meant that Gosplan's role was no longer one of prognosis and drafting of 'control figures' since plans had now become orders to act.

In order to ensure the success of the plan it was necessary to ensure that inputs from one part of the economy matched outputs from another part of the economy. Gosplan achieved this using a methodology called the system of 'material balances'. For a plan period (in detail for one year and in lesser detail for a five year plan) Gosplan drew up a balance sheet in terms of units of material (i.e. money was not used as part of the accounting process).

The first step in the process was to assess how much steel, cement, wool cloth, etc... would be available for the next year. This calculation was based on the following formula: production minus exports plus imports plus or minus changes in stocks).

The second step was to identify where there were mismatches between levels of outputs of one material that was used as an input in another part of the economy i.e. where there were differences between supply and demand within the economy. If mismatches between supply and demand were identified then, for the one year plan, utilization plans for a particular input material could be cut or alternatively effort was made to increase supply. For the five year plan mismatches between supply and demand could be mitigated by modifying long terms plans to increase productive capacity.

Using this method any changes in the plan to remove mismatches between inputs and outputs would result in hundreds, even thousands, of changes to material balances. This meant that, without the aid of information technology, Gosplan could only deal with the economy in very general terms.

Directors of Gosplan

Name Dates Premier(s) Served
Began Office Ended Office
State Planning Commission
Gleb Krzhizhanovsky (1st term) 13 August 1921 11 December 1923 Vladimir Lenin
Alexander Tsuryupa 11 December 1923 18 November 1925 Vladimir Lenin, Alexey Rykov
Gleb Krzhizhanovsky (2nd term) 18 November 1925 10 November 1930 Alexey Rykov
Valerian Kuibyshev 10 November 1930 25 April 1934 Vyacheslav Molotov
Valery Mezhlauk (1st term) 25 April 1934 25 February 1937 Vyacheslav Molotov
Gennady Smirnov 25 February 1937 17 October 1937 Vyacheslav Molotov
Valery Mezhlauk (2nd term) 17 October 1937 1 December 1937 Vyacheslav Molotov
Nikolai Voznesensky (1st term) 19 January 1938 10 March 1941 Vyacheslav Molotov
Maksim Saburov (1st term) 10 March 1941 8 December 1942 Joseph Stalin
Nikolai Voznesensky (2nd term) 8 December 1942 9 January 1948 Joseph Stalin
State Planning Committee
Nikolai Voznesensky 9 January 1948 5 March 1949 Joseph Stalin
Maksim Saburov (2nd term) 5 March 1949 5 March 1953 Joseph Stalin
Grigory Kosyachenko 5 March 1953 29 June 1953 Georgy Malenkov
Maksim Saburov (3rd term) 29 June 1953 25 May 1955 Georgy Malenkov
State Economic Commission for Advanced Planning
Nikolai Baibakov (1st term) 25 May 1955 3 May 1957 Nikolai Bulganin
Joseph Kuzmin 3 May 1957 10 May 1957 Nikolai Bulganin
State Economic Commission for Current Planning
Maksim Saburov 25 May 1955 25 December 1956 Nikolai Bulganin
Mikhail Pervukhin 25 December 1956 10 May 1957 Nikolai Bulganin
State Planning Committee
Joseph Kuzmin 10 May 1957 20 March 1959 Nikolai Bulganin, Nikita Khrushchev
Alexei Kosygin 20 March 1959 4 May 1960 Nikita Khrushchev
Vladimir Novikov 4 May 1960 17 July 1962 Nikita Khrushchev
Veniamin Dymshits 17 July 1962 24 November 1962 Nikita Khrushchev
Pyotr Lomako 24 November 1962 2 October 1965 Nikita Khrushchev, Alexei Kosygin
Nikolai Baibakov (2nd term) 2 October 1965 14 October 1985 Alexei Kosygin, Nikolai Tikhonov, Nikolai Ryzhkov
Nikolai Talyzin 14 October 1985 5 February 1988 Nikolai Ryzhkov
Yuri Maslyukov 5 February 1988 1 April 1991 Nikolai Ryzhkov, Valentin Pavlov

See also

References

  1. ^ Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union by Francine Hirsch, Cornell University Press, 2005

 
 
Related topics:
Economic Bureaucracy (Russian history)
Funded Commodities (Russian history)
Ministry of Foreign Trade (Russian history)

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