State Planning Commission Research Articles

Economic and political activities of the Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee N.A. Voznesensky

Economic and political activities of the Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee N.A. Voznesensky

Evolution of agricultural machinery parts restoration industry in Russia

The paper shows the effectiveness of agricultural machinery parts restoration by reducing metal and fuel consumption as well as labor costs. (Research purpose) The paper analyzes the evolution of the machine part restoration system during the agricultural industrialization process in Russia, and explores the role of industrial science in developing methodologies for machine repairing and part restoration. (Materials and methods) Publications on the history of the parts restoration industry were thoroughly reviewed. Special attention was given to the decrees issued by Soviet government bodies, including the targeted comprehensive program of the State Committee of Science and Technology, the USSR State Planning Committee, and the State Committee for Agricultural Technology. These programs were aimed at establishing and expanding the production base for the repair and restoration of agricultural machinery parts. (Results and discussion) In the early stages of agricultural industrialization, equipment repairs primarily involved the use of new spare parts, while worn parts were typically discarded for remelting. A significant advancement in parts restoration was the introduction of repair sizes for crankshafts and cylinder liners. Since 1975, the cost of maintaining equipment has surged sharply due to the prices of new spare parts. The paper also presents an analysis of the efforts by the All-Union Scientific and Production Association «Remdetal» to develop flow-mechanized lines and equipment for restoring agricultural machinery parts. (Conclusions) The paper illustrates the significant growth in parts restoration volumes, rising from 68 million rubles in 1965 to 539 million rubles in 1988, as well as metal savings that increased from 136 thousand tons to 1,110 thousand tons over the same period. Additionally it highlights the role of the USSR Academy of Sciences, leading scientific institutes, and machine-building enterprises in executing the targeted program to increase the restoration volumes of agricultural machinery parts and components.

ЭКОНОМИКО-ГЕОГРАФИЧЕСКИЕ ОПИСАНИЯ УРАЛА ВО ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЕ 1920-х гг.4

As a result of economic zoning of the country performed by the USSR Gosplan (State Planning Committee) in the1920s, a need arose to draw up characteristics of the emerging regions, which became the reason for the almost simultaneous creationof several series of economic-and-geographical descriptions of the regions of the Soviet Union. As to the Urals, being one of thecountry’s leading industrial regions, books dedicated to it were published in five of the series, intended both for specialists and forvarious segments of the population. The article provides a retrospective review and some comparison of economic-and-geographicaldescriptions of the Ural Oblast (the region was included in the zoning grid under this name) in the second half of the 1920s, and alsotalks about the authors of these books, many of whom subsequently became the country’s leading economic geographers and madesignificant contributions not only to the geography of the Urals but also to various areas of economic geography and to the methodologyof teaching geography. Publications about the Urals marked the beginning of subsequent intensive study of the region both by scientistsfrom Moscow and Leningrad and by leading local economic geographers.

Planning in the economy of the XXI century: the lessons and conclusions from the experience of the USSR state planning committee

The article analyzes the experience of the USSR State Planning Committee, methodological drawbacks and mistakes, examines the problems of interregional cooperation, the investment sphere and the current socio-economic situation in Russia. The author discusses the application of planned methods of managing the economy of a mixed type and the possibilities of forming a national development plan of the country in the conditions of modern foreign policy and internal socio-economic challenges and problems facing by our country. This paper also presents the conclusions from the experience of the USSR State Planning Committee, thanks to which the bulk of the national wealth of modern Russia was created.

Coordination of National Economic Plans of the USSR and CMEA Countries

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.

Erich Apel: Touches to a Historical Portrait

Searching for an optimal model of economic development was one of the central issues of the GDR's development. The economic rivalry with the FRG, which remained the most important factor in the existence of “the first state of workers and peasants on German soil”, made this issue particularly acute. In the 1960s, the GDR leadership made a large-scale attempt to implement a course of reforms aimed at intensifying the planned economy through partial decentralization of certain economic processes and limited use of market elements. The “New Economic System of Planning and Management” proclaimed in 1963 at the 6th Congress of the SED is firmly associated with the name of the party's first secretary, Walter Ulbricht, but would not have been possible without his nomination of a group of practicing economists and technocratic intellectuals to leadership positions. Central among them was Erich Hans Apel, who became head of the GDR State Planning Committee in January 1963 and is considered one of the developers of the concept of the “New Economic System”. This article sketches a historical portrait of Erich Apel during the period of the direct implementation of the reforms on the basis of materials from domestic archives.

Excerpts on the History of Ministry of Economy and Forecasting of the USSR in 1991: The Last Year of the Empire

The collapse of the USSR became an epoch-making event in Russian and world history. The commemorative practices of studying the economic history of the late USSR imply using the country's archival heritage as the most important segment of the social memory and the basis for scientific research. The goal of the article is to introduce into scientific use archival materials of the Ministry of Economy and Forecasting of the USSR, stored in the Russian State Archive of the Economy. The Ministry existed from April to December 1991 and was functionally positioned as the successor of the USSR State Planning Committee. The fonds of the Ministry, apart from the traditional organizational and administrative documents, includes a document block of obvious research interest: these are the responses prepared within the Ministry to the instructions of the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR. This archival material makes it possible to understand the view of the top leadership, represented by the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR, on the economic situation in the country, its current problems, options for correcting the problem situations that had arisen, the vision of perspective, in this case tactical, in this most difficult period of national history. With a certain degree of convention, it is possible to identify such thematic lines in the documentary array as the preparation and implementation of state programmes, the state of certain sectors of the economy, the activities of specific enterprises, the economic situation in the regions, the issues of import / export of products and technologies, the situation with the currency fund of the country, external lending issues, social themes, elements of a market economy, etc. The paper considers documentary primary sources on the first four subjects.

РОЛЬ ГОСПЛАНОВ СССР И РСФСР В ПЕРВЫЕ МЕСЯЦЫ СОВНАРХОЗНОЙ РЕФОРМЫ

The author examines the role of the Gosplans (State Planning Committees) of the USSR and the RSFSR in the first six months of the implementation of the Sovnarkhoz (Supreme Economic Council) reform. He analyzes the personnel appointments of N. S. Khrushchev in the planning departments, and also reveals the impact of the defeat of the «anti-party group» on the start of the reform. The author’s attention is focused on the attempts of the State Planning Committees of the USSR and the RSFSR to take the initiative in managing the Sovnarkhoz at the initial stage of the reform. He argues that the Gosplan of the RSFSR was quickly pushed away from this work. An analysis of changes in the regulatory framework of the reform, as well as the additional functions assigned to the USSR State Planning Committee, and the results of two meetings at the center with representatives of the Sovnarkhoz in July and December 1957 helps to trace the direction of the beginning of the evolution of the territorial management system.

MANAGEMENT OF XINJIANG’S OIL ENERGY AND NUCLEAR ENERGY SOURCES IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (PRC) IN POST-COLD WAR

China's dependence on energy so far has been on coal. However, like other non-renewable fossil energy, the supply of coal itself is getting depleted. In addition, the PRC's dependence on coal so far has brought losses to the PRC itself, namely the high levels of carbon dioxide emissions contained in the PRC's air. This situation makes the PRC government feel the need to develop other energy sources. Considering the PRC is a country that is blessed with various energy reserves which are quite abundant, it is not too difficult for the PRC government to explore and develop these energy reserves. However, it turns out that it is not so easy to raise this issue because in some ways this energy issue has touched other sensitive aspects. For this reason, the PRC government implements an energy policy consisting of a short-term plan, a medium-term plan, and a long-term plan. The agency responsible for this is the State Planning Commission (SPC). Bringing together the supporting factors and inhibiting factors, the visible trend is that the PRC government will continue to strive to maintain its energy policy, but by making improvements that are felt to be very necessary in order to be effective. This is inseparable from the existence of the PRC's economy as well as its environment which means the existence of the country itself in the future.

Famine of 1946-1947: Causes, Consequences, Problems for Children's Health

The results of historical and medical analysis are presented: they show the situation related to the famine of 1946-1947 that covered several regions of the USSR and was caused by natural (drought), objective (Second World War consequences), and political (foreign and domestic economic policy of our government) factors. The aim of the study is to analyze the famine causes and consequences and the associated increase in child morbidity and mortality. The archival materials of USSR Ministry of Health fund, the demography department of USSR Central Statistical Office (CSU), USSR State Planning Committee reports, and works of historians, economists, demographers, and children health professional were declassified and studied to cover the issue. The information provided by researchers about human losses during the famine is very contradictory. The resumptive opinion of the demographer V.B. Zhiromskaya indicates that human losses due to famine were about 1 million people in USSR in 1947, including about 0.5 million people in RSFSR. The children population reached more than one third of the total population mortality. Population losses in 1947 exceeded losses in 1946 in RSFSR by 402,480 people according to the authors calculations. Among them almost a half (49.6%) were children aged 0-15 years, and 74.6% of them were infants. The leading causes of children mortality were dystrophy, gastrointestinal diseases, pneumonia, childhood infections, typhus fever, and tuberculosis. The Soviet government has taken several measures to provide medical care for patients with dystrophy, to expand the infant-feeding center network for providing children with food, and to create children's health areas with better nutrition. The implementation of all these measures saved thousands of children's lives from famine and related diseases. However, these measures cannot be considered totally sufficient due to extremely high rate of child mortality in hunger-affected areas.

Сергей Борисович Шлихтер (1931–2010) и его вклад в географию мировой транспортной системы

Biographical essay about the famous Soviet and Russian human geographer S.B. Shlikhter worked near 30 years in the Institute of Geography of Russian Academy of Sciences. He was born in Moscow in 1931 and graduated from Moscow State University in 1954. He has been the specialist in the field of transportation geography, infrastructure geography, economic geography of the World Ocean, economic integration of European countries. The first two decades of his creative life have been devoted to the studying of the peculiarities of transport location in foreign countries in the Institute of complex transportation problems at the USSR’s State Planning Commission (Gosplan). He died in Munich in 2010. The list of the scientific publications of S.B. Shlikhter is given.

К планированию на новой основе: от количества продукции к качеству жизни населения

The article analyzes the evolution of approaches to the planning system in our country from the moment the USSR State Planning Committee was created in 1921 to modern methods of strategic planning. A brief analysis of the views of leading economists who have formed the scientific basis for the transition in planning from quantitative to qualitative indicators is presented. The content of the author’s methodology of approaches to strategic planning, based on the use of quality economics methods, ensuring the modernization of planning in the context of innovative development and digitalization, is disclosed.

Statistics of the USSR and Leningrad During the Great Patriotic War

The article looks at how Soviet, Russian state statistics operated during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). Statistical activities within both the system of state structures, led by the Central Statistical Board of the USSR State Planning Committee, and departmental statistics, organized at that time in sectoral management structures – Narkomats (People’s Commissariats). The authors show how urgent mobilization of all the nation’s resources for needs of the front led to the changes in statistical work; this was primarily related to priorities of statistical observations and time frames of statistical works.The paper analyses main directions of statistical activity on the collection and processing of information on different levels of the managerial structure and at the industry level. The authors review all advances in statistics that happened in wartime conditions urgent censuses (surveys) and operational data transfer, a system of operational accounting.In a separate section of the article using archival sources, for the first time, are considered the problems of organizing statistical activities in Leningrad, the city that found itself in the blockade ring in 1941, and ways to solve them in extreme military conditions.

100 years of creation. On the jubilee of «Teploelectroproekt»

The history is presented of creation and activities of Teploelectroproekt JSC (formerly, Teploelectroproekt Institute), a flagship company in Russian design of thermal and nuclear power facilities. Results are considered of the Institute’s activities in severe conditions of the Civil War and foreign military intervention, in times of peace and during the Great Patriotic War, at the post-war years of restoration of industrial facilities, during the reform of Russia’s power sector after the breakdown of the USSR. The contribution of distinguished scientists and engineers in formation and development of the Institute over its 100-year long history is described. The Institute’s achievements are presented in both the creation of modern infrastructure of Russia’s power industry, and in construction of power plants abroad (in China, Iraq, India and other countries). The quality of design solutions largely depended on the level of technical equipment of designers. TEP acted as the driving force and head organization of the industry in introduction of information technologies in design. For many years, the Institute has been a talent pool for power industry executives. Among those who started their professional life there are I. I. Ugorets (USSR deputy power plant minister), Ya. I. Finogenov (USSR first deputy minister for power industry and electrification), A. A. Troitskiy (USSR Energy Ministry and USSR State Planning Committee), S. P. Goncharov (USSR Energy Ministry), to name just a few. Due to its great experience and united team, the Institute could maintain its leading positions in the design of construction of thermal power plants. The Institute is actively engaged in working on creating projects of state-of-art highperformance thermal power plants operating on organic fuels with steam-turbine, steam-gas and gas-turbine units. The Institute creates advanced innovative projects meeting the most stringent demands of customers, in accordance with industrual and environmental safety requirements.

REGIONAL LEADERS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION AND THEIR IDEAS ON ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENT IN 1965–1985, SIBERIA*

The study defines the positions of the first secretaries of the Siberian regional committees of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in the field of economic management in 1965 – 1985. After sector ministries had been restored, regional CPSU leaders declared that management institutions had to be moved to production centers, thus demanding the organization of inter-regional sector bodies on their territories. The paper shows how regional initiatives were supported by the central party-state bodies that introduced public debates and kept sending letters to the CPSU Central Committee, the heads of the USSR Council of Ministers, and the USSR State Planning Committee. The author managed to reveal the conflicts between the first secretaries of the regional committees of the CPSU. The conflicts were caused by the growing need to control the territorial administration bodies of the allied ministries and departments. One may conclude that the regional party bodies intended to strengthen the coordination of the local economic policy. However, the policy was controversial: on the one hand, there was a need to eliminate the redundant management levels of sector ministries and departments; on the other hand, there was a strong motivation to increase the staff of sector departments of regional and regional party committees.

Fiscal Federalism Model in Nepal: An Analytical Study

The Constitution of Nepal as Federal Democratic Republic was promulgated on September 20, 2015 by the second CA. The primary objective of this study is to review the modality presented in the new constitution on the natural resources, economic rights and revenue allocation. The study finds that the fiscal decentralization initiatives have not been successful in minimizing the political, social, economic, regional and ethnic inequalities inherent for nearly 240 years of a unitary system of governance in Nepal. The study recommends that VAT and income taxes will have to be collected concurrently at both the central and sub-national levels. Other taxes including excise duties will have to be collected by the sub-national governments which will support the expenditure responsibilities of the sub national governments adequately in federal Nepal. Intergovernmental transfer modality has to be included in the constitution. National Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission (NNRFC) have been constituted at the central level to make national level development plans and to make recommendations for additional grants and loans. A State Planning Commission (SPC) and a State Fiscal Commission (SFC) can be established in each state to prepare state development plans and to deal with the transfers to be made to local bodies.

The Status of Senior Citizen; A Reality Check

Human development has remained one of the major concerns for social planners and policy makers over time. While improvements in human development aspects like health, decline in fertility, and an increase in longevity are desirable, the projected increase of the elderly population over the next few decades is emerging as serious development concern that warrants priority. The Paper is a first-of-its-kind attempt by Poverty Monitoring and Policy Support Unit (PMPSU) of Madhya Pradesh State Planning Commission to outline the situation analysis and major Issues that affect the elderly and review of existing gaps in policy and practice. This Paper is a compilation of various reviews, fact sheets and research articles to highlight the contrast of the happy picture of increased longevity, and the prospect of long years of hopelessness, bereft of family and society. Finally, it provides suggestive measures so that the ‘golden age’ does not become synonymous with ‘destitution’ for about two-thirds of the elderly population in the country.

Nepal's Fiscal Federalism Model in the New Constitution: Agenda for Amendments

The first Constituent Assembly (CA) was dissolved without producing the constitution. The Constitution of Nepal as Federal Democratic Republic was promulgated on September 20, 2015 by the second CA. The primary objective of this study is to review the modality presented in the new constitution on the natural resources, economic rights and revenue allocation and recommend some amendments. The study finds that the fiscal decentralization initiatives have not been successful in minimizing the political, social, economic, regional and ethnic inequalities inherent for nearly 240 years of a unitary system of governance in Nepal. The study recommends: VAT and income taxes will have to be collected concurrently at both the central and sub-national levels. Other taxes including excise duties will have to be collected by the sub-national governments which will support the expenditure responsibilities of the sub-national governments adequately in federal Nepal. Intergovernmental transfer modality has to be included in the constitution. A Federal Finance Commission (FFC) and the National Planning Commission will have to be constituted at the central level to make national level development plans and to make recommendations for additional grants and loans. A State Planning Commission (SPC) and a State Finance Commission can be established in each state to prepare state development plans and to deal with the transfers to be made to local bodies.

Consumption Level During the Period of Holodomor

Territorial expansion of the 1933 famine is a matter of dispute between Ukrainian and Russian history scientists. The former regard the famine to be localized within Ukraine, while the latter adopt the position that vast regions of Russia, in particular the Volga River region and Central Chernozemic region, were affected with the famine too. To solve this matter, the author has the data engaged which concern nutrition survey conducted by Gosplan (State Planning Committee) of the USSR in 1933. These data show that the situation in Ukraine was the most disastrous. The Volga River and Central Chernozemic regions, although suffered from the famine too, were featured with consumption of food products about 1.5 times higher than that in Odessa or Kiev regions. The average daily consumption of 1070 kcal which was recorded in Odessa region in early 1933 allowed life- sustaining activity of a human being for three months only.

Measuring School-Related Stressors in Adolescents

Some 1620 high school students responded to 68 items that measure adolescent stressors. Thirty-five of the items were based on J. P. Kohn and G. H. Frazer's Academic Stress Scale [1(1986) “An Academic Stress Scale: Identification and Rated Importance of Academic Stressors,” Psychological Reports, Vol. 59, pp. 415–426] developed in the United States, while the remaining 33 items were developed from P. Strutynski's [(1985) A Survey of Queensland Year 10, 11 and 12 Student Attitudes to Schools and Schooling, State Planning Committee, International Youth Year, Brisbane] lists of the most frequently named problems of 2336 Australian high school students. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to test and develop a measurement model developed from an extensive review of previous scales. The High School Stressors Scale emerged from the analytic process and measures nine school-related stressors. For researchers focusing on school-related problems and stressors among adolescents, the HSSS promises to be a very useful instrument. It has sound construct and predictive validity and adequate reliability, as demonstrated by the goodness-of-fit indices the squared multiple correlations.