Industrial Statistics of the State Planning Committee of the U.S.S.R. (Gosplan)

Abstract

There are few more important facts about Soviet industrial (and other economic) data than that there are three separate streams of statistical information, each with an individual orientation. These are systems of Central Statistical Administration, State Planning Committee (Gosplan), and Ministry of Finance. This paper emphasizes importance of Gosplan system and its potential use to analysts. Even though Gosplan statistics are not generally available to public, their existence is confirmed by official questionnaires, instructions for their completion, and numerous Soviet discussions and comparisons of data which they provide. The outline of Gosplan system presented in this paper is intended to serve two purposes. First, despite fact that data of this system of information as a whole are virtually secret, their significance for operational management has forced Soviet authorities to publish increasing bits and pieces of Gosplan statistics. This paper, it is believed, will help analysts to identify Gosplan indicators and to reconstruct components of Gosplan system. Second, it is intended to provide a fuller appreciation both of statistical resources available for Soviet decisionmaking and of necessity for discretion by analysts in selection of data for specific research purposes. For instance, use of more readily available data of Central Statistical Administration (and to a lesser degree, of Ministry of Finance) is not valid for inquiries on composition of either industrial output or armaments output and expenditures, because these systems exclude such specific information. The Central Statistical Administration has a general statistical function; in particular, for censuses of population, coordination and compilation of foreign economic information, and prompt processing and publication of data on fulfillment of principal economic indicators of plan. The Ministry of Finance has a general statistical responsibility for preparation of financial statistics, external audit of accounts, and in particular, for information on state (centralized) accumulations and measurement of their expenditure through state budget. Gosplan's statistics are highly strategic and operational; that is, they are used in construction of national economic and in management and measurement of its fulfillment. They are also used for management purposes by enterprises and supervisory authorities. Only statistics of Central Statistical Administration are regularly published. The Soviet scholarly community, however, deems much of Statistical Administration's data only approximately reconcilable with corresponding and more refined indicators of Gosplain. For example, Professor Gromov, a leading statistician in Soviet Union, has written in Komlnunist that Administration's indicator of gross industrial activity (valovaya prodcuktsiya) greatly distorts real volume of production and does not permit measurement of its effectiveness. Even with substantial corrections, it is possible to obtain only an approximation of volume of production. ' The actual volume of production referred to by Gromov is given only in data collected by product in physical and value terms by Gosplan. These data are included in national economic plani. A copy of this document for 1941, captured by German Army during World War II, confirmed continued preparation of this classified source and provided benchmarks to analysts for many years. The economic reform initiated in 1965 has now given an exclusive role to Gosplan's measurements (e.g., sales and volume of production in physical terms) as officially approved indicators of fulfillment, in replacement of historical series on aggregate industrial output of Central Statistical Administration. Thus, regardless of latter's continued use and value, increasing amounts of Gosplan data and methodology are being published. The use of these data can be considerably enhanced by a knowledge of system of data collection, data flows, and procedures for their compilation. Data collection for Gosplan.-Far more industrial data are collected for Gosplan than for other two systems combined. The reporting of industrial enterprises includes (1) daily, 5-day, and 10-day detailed schedules on production of specific industrial products; (2) continuous supply and sales documents which justify both requisitions and orders for sales; and (3) voluminous sets of summary reports such as (a) director's clarifying appendix to annual report (a set of supplementary reports prepared by director of each industrial organization in clarification of data in annual report), (b) quarterly and annual summaries of separate organizational-technical plans (orgtekhplan) for use of resources per unit of output, and (c) various preplanning and planning documents.2 Among last, most important is enterprise's report termed the technical-industrial-financial plan * The opinions expressed in this paper are those of author and do not necessarily reflect official views of United States Government.