Some Organizational and Methodological Problems Relating to the Elaboration of Long-Range Plans for Collaboration Between the USSR and Socialist Countries

Abstract

Today, the foreign economic relations of the Soviet Union with foreign countries are an essential factor in the development of the Soviet economy, and in considerable measure they promote the effectiveness of the national economy. In 1973 USSR foreign trade will grow by 7.9% compared with last year, essentially through the further expansion of collaboration with fraternal socialist countries that account for approximately two-thirds of our country's total foreign trade turnover. As noted in the report of USSR Gosplan Chairman N. K. Baibakov on the plan for the development of the USSR national economy for 1973, at a session of the Supreme Soviet, "the economic relations between nations in the socialist community will develop in the direction…of consistent intensification of the economic integration of the economies of COMECON member nations, the planned intensification of integrated forms of collaboration between socialist countries, and the expansion of cooperation and specialization in industrial and agricultural production. All these factors will promote the further growth of the international socialist division of labor…the acceleration of technical progress, increased effectiveness of production, and a higher living standard." (1)