Coordination of National Economic Plans of the USSR and CMEA Countries

Abstract

The article describes the development and functioning of the mechanism for coordinating state long-term (five-year) economic development plans of the CMEA countries. Special attention is paid to the period of the late 1960s, when dissatisfaction with the achieved level of CMEA work, including in the field of coordination of plans, gave rise to a wide discussion about ways to reform CMEA, which resulted in the adoption of the Comprehensive Program of Socialist Economic Integration. Analysis of a mechanism of bilateral consultations, which became the main form of coordination of plans after the failure of Soviet attempts to increase the role of CMEA in 1962—1963, made possible to figure out the pros and cons of this mechanism. The article describes various Soviet proposals to change it made by the USSR State Planning Committee and the CMEA itself. It is shown that the USSR State Planning Committee resisted the ideas of strengthening the role of CMEA in the process of coordinating the plans of the CMEA countries. It is concluded that the State Planning Committee was guided not only by institutional competition. He sought to guarantee the Soviet economy from the consequences of rash decisions to increase supplies of fuel and raw materials to the European CMEA countries, which the State Planning Committee considered unprofitable.