Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

A

Agriculture

Collectivized agriculture continued to engage much of the population. Khrushchev developed two major plans for increasing grain production: bringing marginal lands, especially in Kazakhstan, under cultivation, and raising corn. Neither proved completely successful. In 1958 most of the control was taken from central government agencies and given to 39 area councils. The collectives bought the machinery they had previously rented from tractor stations, and the government paid higher prices for compulsory grain deliveries. Unfavourable weather was largely responsible for poor grain crops in 1963, 1965, 1969, 1972, and 1975. Other causes were the apparent inefficiency of collective farming and the shortage of labour caused by migration of rural youth to towns. The crop failures slowed down the economic growth rate and greatly increased the foreign debt because the government, to avert famine, bought large amounts of wheat from the United States and Canada. The government took steps to combat the problem by paying a monthly wage to farmers; offering new incentives for superior production; adopting more efficient management techniques; and increasing the use of fertilizer, labour-saving machinery, and irrigation. A long-term policy involved reactivating a plan originated by Khrushchev to evacuate the people of many small villages and resettle them in large farming centres. Such measures, combined with good weather, resulted in record harvests in 1973, 1974, and 1976. Irrigation and reforestation made even the marginal lands of Kazakhstan remarkably productive. Nevertheless, agriculture remained a serious problem.

B

Industry

Rapid industrialization had occurred in the Soviet Union under Stalin's Five-year plans, eventually turning the country into the world's second industrial and military power. However, production of consumer goods had long lagged. Total industrial production in 1957 was reported as 33 times that of 1913, but the increase in consumer items was only 13 times higher, compared with an increase of 74 times in heavy industries. The Khrushchev regime promised an increase in consumer goods, but accomplished little. The regional industrial councils were consolidated in 1957 and again in 1962, and industrial enterprises were combined. By 1964 attention centred on the fertilizer, plastics, and rubber industries.

C

Management

Yevsey Liberman and other Soviet economists had advocated the introduction of some capitalist features into the framework of Marxism as a means of increasing industrial production, particularly recognizing the profit motive as a stimulus to plant efficiency. Kosygin, Brezhnev, and other officials accepted these ideas, admitting that management methods had fallen behind productive capacities. The correct principle, they stated, was combining centralized general direction with cost accounting, production based on orders, wage incentives, and other capitalist practices. In a pilot project begun in July 1965, 400 clothing and shoe factories based their production on orders received rather than on quotas set by the government. In October the Supreme Soviet adopted legislation applying this policy to industries, farms, transport, construction, and communications. Working capital was to be assigned to each enterprise, and local management was to determine its use. A total payroll was also to be assigned to each enterprise, but the local management might pay by time or piecework and might pay bonuses based on profits. By mid-1969 enterprises producing one-third of the total industrial output were operating under the new system. Developments in the 1970s, however, brought about the gradual decline of the Liberman approach.

D

Construction

Some industries lagged considerably, particularly construction. The migration of rural population into cities that accompanied rapid industrialization resulted in a housing shortage. New methods for prefabricating walls and even whole rooms were borrowed from the West, but factories for making these products were not built as rapidly as projected, and housing goals were seldom met. Moreover, new housing was not well built and deteriorated rapidly.

E

Minerals

Of great importance for the growth of the Soviet economy was the increased development of Siberia, utilizing forced labour. The opening of vast new fields of oil and natural gas in Tyumen in western Siberia augmented the Soviet Union's supply of energy sources. Deposits of copper and coal have been discovered farther east. Construction is under way on the 3218-km (2000-mi) Baikal-Amur Railway, which runs north of the present Trans-Siberian Railway and thus at a safer distance from the Chinese border.