8 STALIN’S LAST PLAN - Hoover Institution...Stalin’s Last Plan 163 dissension within the Politburo. The power struggle that delayed the XIX Party Congress was the intense battle

8 STALIN’S LASTPLAN

Aleksei Tikhonov andPaul R. Gregory

The Soviet Union entered the postwarperiod as a major contributor to the Allied victory over Hitler’sGermany. The presence of Soviet troops was used to create a newSoviet empire, covering most of Central and Southeastern Europe.The communist party was victorious in China. The Soviet eco-nomic system had survived the crises of the 1930s and had pro-vided most of the resources to defeat the Nazi war machine.World War II spelled the end of colonial empires, leaving poorcountries in Asia and Africa free to choose between democraticcapitalism and Soviet socialism. The Soviets’ promise of rapideconomic growth held considerable appeal for such poor coun-tries. The Stalinist system was put in place in the early 1930s amidconfusion, experimentation, and a conviction that industrializa-tion must take place quickly. This hastily conceived economic sys-tem (described in earlier chapters) had demanded much of thepopulation in terms of sacrifice, hunger, and political terror.

Since its inception, Soviet leaders had not had a period of nor-malcy in which to consider how the system should work under‘‘normal’’ conditions. As the Soviet Union entered the postwarera, at long last it had an opportunity to reevaluate its prioritiesand to make changes in the economic and political system it had

The authors are grateful to the Hoover Institution for its support of this project.

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160 Aleksei Tikhonov and Paul R. Gregory

cobbled together in the 1930s. The immediate postwar period,1945–1950, was not a time for such reflection. Planning prioritieswere simple— recovery from wartime destruction. The first post-war plan, the Fourth Five-Year Plan (1945–1950), restored mostbranches to their prewar levels, with most resources going tothose with the most war damage.

RETHINKING THE SYSTEM AFTER THE WAR?

Stalin and the Communist Party had used party congresses to ad-dress weighty issues. The prewar history of the Soviet CommunistParty shows that party congresses were convened only after inter-nal power struggles had been resolved. For example, the XVIParty Congress of 1930 was delayed until Stalin’s conclusive vic-tory over his remaining potent rivals within the Politburo (Bukh-arin and Rykov). This congress stilled opposition to the Stalinleadership and embarked on a course of temporary partial liberal-ization.1 The convening of the first postwar party congress wouldtherefore signal that the internal power struggle concerning Sta-lin’s eventual successor had been resolved (Stalin died in Marchof 1953) and that the party leadership was ready to take on majorissues. The convening of the XIX Party Congress in 1952, thirteenyears after the XVIII Congress in 1939, indicated a new politicalequilibrium and the party’s readiness to address issues of postwareconomic and political strategy.

The published official record of the XIX Party Congress is rel-atively uninformative.2 We are fortunate, however, to have thesecret file of all documents relating to the XIX Congress, pre-served in a special fond, which includes the very first discussions

1. For an account of this period, see O. V. Khlevnyuk, Politburo: Mekhanizmpoliticheskoi vlasti v 1930-e gody (Moscow: Rosspen, 1996).

2. Direktivy XIX Sezda partii po piatomu piatiletnemu planu razvitiia SSSRna 1951–1955 gody (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politicheskoi literatury,1952); Ob itogakh vypolneniia piatovogo piatiletnego plana razvitiia SSSR i soiuz-nykh respublik na 1951–1955 gody (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politic-heskoi literatury, 1956).

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Stalin’s Last Plan 161

of convening the congress, all preparatory documents, drafts ofspeeches and reports, as well as the plans and reports drawn upby planning agencies for use in the congress. These documentswere circulated to a limited group of the highest state and partyofficials; most were addressed directly to Stalin, who at that timewas chairman of the Council of Ministers (the head of govern-ment) and General Secretary of the Communist Party. This chap-ter is largely based on the XIX Party Congress file located in thearchives of the Hoover Institution.3 This fond contains all materi-als associated with the preparation and execution of the XIXParty Congress, including the preparatory documents for the FifthFive-Year Plan, which constituted its most important agenda item.The XIX Party Congress fond permits us to look behind thescenes of the Party Congress. We pay special attention to the rea-sons for the lengthy delay in convening the congress and to thepreparation of the Fifth Five-Year Plan, which constituted the firstreal opportunity to reexamine economic priorities for the postwarera.

The Five-Year Delay

The Hoover archives reveal the little-known intent of the Po-litburo to call the XIX Party Congress at the beginning of 1947,assigning A. Zhdanov the major organizational role. At this time,Zhdanov was second only to Stalin in the party, heading its secre-tariat. This Politburo assignment clearly established Zhdanov asStalin’s intended successor. On January 7, 1947, the Politburo ap-proved a decision to call a plenum of the Central Committee onFebruary 21, which included as a main agenda item the convoca-tion of the XIX Party Congress and assigned Zhdanov responsi-

3. XIX Congress file (RTsHINDI, fond 592, 113 files) is a collection of docu-ments very different in origin, all documents that had any connection to or made anyreference to the XIX Party Congress. This collection came to the Hoover Institutionarchives as a part of a joint Hoover-Rosarchiv project and is located in films 2.2590–2.2602.

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bility for the agenda.4 The XIX Party Congress was eventuallyconvened five years later under the direction of G. Malenkov,Zhdanov’s rival. Why the five-year delay?

The January 1947 Central Committee plenum was only thesecond meeting of the Central Committee since 1941. Followingthe January 1947 plenum, there was a seven-month break, untilAugust 15, when a short meeting took place to approve the Polit-buro decision to call the XIX Congress. Official descriptions ofthis meeting describe primarily discussions of agricultural issueswith no mention of the convocation of the XIX Party Congress,which was (again following the Politburo’s directive) to be themain item on the Plenum’s agenda.5 The official records, there-fore, conceal the fact that the calling of the XIX Party Congresswas discussed in 1947, but Zhdanov’s personal collection of ma-terials does indeed contain his speech at the 1947 plenum, inwhich he proposed a new party program and a new party statuteas the main items of the XIX Party Congress agenda. He sched-uled the congress to take place at the end of 1947 or at least in1948.6 The XIX Party Congress archives then fall silent without asingle mention of the XIX Congress until December 1951, whenthe Politburo again set the date for the Congress for October of1952.7

The delay in calling the party congress, although ignored inofficial accounts, caused apprehension among party members, asreflected in a note from a party member: ‘‘I request that you givean answer as to why a congress has not been called for so long.There are harmful rumors, such as this is Stalin’s last congress . . .that he is aging.’’8 Although there is no official explanation forthe five-year delay in calling the congress, the answer lies in thefact that party congresses cannot be called in the midst of internal

4. Hoover film 2.2590 (592-1-1)5. See Khrushchev’s detailed description in N.S. Khrushchev, Vospominania:

Vremya. Liudi. Vlast’ (Moskovskie Novosti, 1999), p. 12–13.6. Zhdanov’s Personal Fond, 77-3-173.7. Film 2.2590 (592-1-1), Protocol N 84, December 7, 1951, Meeting.8. Film 2.2592(592-1-27), Letters to XIX CPSU Congress.

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dissension within the Politburo. The power struggle that delayedthe XIX Party Congress was the intense battle over Stalin’s suc-cessor.

The Succession Struggle

Stalin, owing to declining health and perhaps declining inter-est, was no longer in active control of the economy and of hissubordinates at the turn of the decade of the 1950s. He spent lesstime in Moscow and more time in the south, receiving fewer andfewer visitors. ‘‘As is shown by Stalin’s appointments journal formeetings in his Kremlin office, the circle of his appointments di-minished. If he met with 2,000 visitors in 1940, then in 1950 thenumber diminished to around 700, and in 1951 and 1952, lessthan 500 per year. He did not appear for months in his Kremlinoffice. In 1950 he did not receive visitors for almost five months.’’9

Stalin himself mentioned the succession issue, at least in principle.One of the few surviving senior party leaders from the purges ofthe 1930s, L. Kaganovich, stated: ‘‘Stalin generally consideredthat comrades should drop the task of direct rule after reachingthe age of seventy. They can be advisers but not rulers.’’10

Stalin’s successor was not to be drawn from the old politicalelite that survived the Great Purges. By the end of the war, theold political elite had shrunk to four: V. Molotov, K. Voroshilov,A. Mikoyan, and L. Kaganovich. This group appeared to be moreinterested in its physical survival than in power and did not ap-pear to represent a cohesive political force. It had been generallyregarded that Molotov, on account of his earlier experience asprime minister and foreign minister (somehow Stalin thought thatthe prime minister had to be Russian in origin), would be Stalin’ssuccessor, but Stalin effectively removed Molotov (along with Mi-

9. R. Pikhoia, ‘‘Sotsialno-politicheskoe razvitie i bor’ba za vlast’ v poslevoen-nom Sovetskom Soiuze (1945–1953),’’ MIZh, no. 6 (1999); http://www.machaon.ru/.

10. Ibid., p. 498.

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koyan) from contention.11 Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs:‘‘Whereas earlier we, people of the prewar times, had regardedMolotov as the future leader of the country after Stalin’s death,we now understood that that would not be the case. At everyregular meeting, Stalin attacked Molotov, attacked Mikoyan, de-vouring them. These two were in disgrace; their very lives were indanger.’’12

To replace the ranks of the old leaders depleted by the GreatTerror, Stalin brought in new faces to the Politburo. AlthoughStalin had earlier refrained from consolidating party and statepower, he himself assumed the chairmanship of the Council ofMinisters in 1940 in addition to his position as General Secretaryof the Communist Party. He added five younger party leaders:Beria, Voznesensky, Zhdanov, Kosygin, and Khrushchev; theywould vie to become Stalin’s successor after the war. These newleaders were assigned different responsibilities: Zhdanov, Vozne-sensky, and Kosygin were assigned party, ideology, and planning;Beria and Malenkov, who served together on the State Committeefor Defense (GKO) during the war, were responsible for the mili-tary and security. Zhdanov served as the head of the party appara-tus. Malenkov became Stalin’s deputy and eventually deputyprime minister. Voznesensky also served as deputy prime minister,carrying out the lion’s share of work in the state apparatus, in-cluding the chairmanship of the State Planning Commission (Gos-plan). According to a Politburo decree of March 29, 1948,Vozensensky and Malenkov alternatively chaired meetings of theCouncil of Ministers. They formed two competing groups—Zhdanov-Voznesensky (also known as the Leningrad group) andMalenkov-Beria—that engaged in the war of succession.

Zhdanov, the former first secretary of Leningrad and memberof Politburo since 1939, served as secretary of the Party’s CentralCommittee and was clearly second only to Stalin in the party or-

11. Khrushchev, Vospominania, p. 96.12. Ibid.

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ganization in the late 1940s. It was in this capacity that the Polit-buro assigned him in February 1947 to make preparations for theXIX Party Congress. Apparently, the counterweight of his rivalsMalenkov and Beria stalemated the first call for a party congress.Eighteen months later, before any congress had been convened,Zhdanov died (August 31, 1948), from an apparent heart attack,although foul play cannot be ruled out. Zhdanov’s death dis-rupted the fragile political equilibrium and initiated a series ofpolitical events that led to the defeat of surviving members of hisLeningrad group, of which Voznesensky remained the most in-fluential. First, three prominent Leningrad party officials were ac-cused of anti-party activities. In February 1949, Malenkov, themain rival of the Leningrad group, was sent to Leningrad to inves-tigate, where he ordered arrests. Voznesensky, though not directlyimplicated, was faulted for lack of vigilance and in September1949 was fired as head of Gosplan after a series of setbacks engi-neered by his opponents, starting with an accusation of havingdeliberately disobeyed an order of Stalin.13 Voznesensky’s fate

13. Oleg Khlevnyuk, ‘‘Sovetskaia ekonomicheskaia politika na rubezhe 40–50godov i delo gosplana,’’ Working Paper, Florence, Italy, March 2000, describes thepower struggle as follows: In November of 1948, Stalin proposed that Voznesenskywork out a plan to eliminate the usual seasonality of the first quarter. According toMikoyan, Voznesensky agreed, even though he knew this was an impossible task.Voznesensky agreed to the necessary increases in the first-quarter production plan,but the plan change was never made. Pomaznev (the head of Gossnab) informedStalin in February as part of the attack on Voznesensky. Stalin gave an order to theCouncil of Ministers to investigate, and it sided with Pomaznev. Beria, through hisagent in Gosplan, found a memo of Voznesensky stating that it was unrealistic toeliminate seasonality of the first quarter—and wrote on it ‘‘v delo’’ (in processing),which effectively stopped the order. Beria placed this memo on Stalin’s desk onMarch 5, 1949. A 1949 decree ‘‘About Gosplan,’’ which bears marks of Stalin’sparticipation, states: ‘‘The government of the USSR not once declared that the mostimportant task of Gosplan is the assurance in state plans of the growth and develop-ment of the economy, as indicated by existing reserves of productive capacity andbattling against any kind of agency tendency toward lowering of plans. As the gen-eral state organ for planing the national economy, Gosplan must be an absolutelyobjective and one hundred percent honest organ. In its work, there should be nokind of influence or manipulation of figures. On the basis of an investigation of theBureau of the Council of Ministers, it was established that Gosplan allows nonobjec-tive and dishonest approaches to the questions of planning and evaluation of plan

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was sealed when his opponents fabricated a case showing thatGosplan had mishandled secret documents. He was arrested alongwith a number of his relatives and was executed on October 1,1950, on the basis of the directive ‘‘On responsibility for distribu-tion of government secrets and loss of documents containing gov-ernment secrets.’’ The ensuing 1949 purge of Gosplan wasnarrow, showing that Voznesensky, not Gosplan, was the real tar-get. There was no general accusation of counterrevolutionarygroups within Gosplan; of Gosplan’s 1,400 employees, 130 werefired and more than forty of those were transferred to other work;of twelve deputies of Voznesensky, only one was imprisoned.

The Soviet leadership thus entered the 1950s with the Malen-kov-Beria group victorious as a consequence of the physical elimi-nation of Zhdanov and Voznesensky and with an ailing Stalin.The Politburo announced the convening of the long-awaited XIXParty Congress in December 1951 and named Malenkov to de-liver the keynote address.

THE XIX PARTY CONGRESS

The ‘‘new call’’ for the XIX Party Congress reflected the outcomeof the succession struggle between the Malenkov-Beria factionand the defeated Leningrad faction. Whereas Zhdanov had an-nounced the agenda of the XIX Party Congress in 1947, the 1952agenda gave Malenkov the highly visible role of delivering thekeynote address, while Stalin limited himself to a short appear-ance. The Hoover fond contains copies of the various draft ver-sions of Malenkov’s speech along with the version that wasactually delivered, and various commentaries on Malenkov’sdraft speech, especially those by Stalin, permit us to determine thedegree of consensus and particularly Stalin’s own stance. We

fulfillment, which expresses itself in the manipulation of figures with the goal ofobscuring the real state of affairs. It was also discovered that Gosplan has joinedranks with separate ministries and agencies to lower productive capacities and eco-nomic plans of ministries.’’

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know from Khrushchev how carefully Stalin prepared his papersand speeches. 14 It was therefore to be expected that Stalin wouldreview the important Malenkov address with great care.

In his memoirs, Kaganovich confirmed that there was wide-spread discussion of the Malenkov report: ‘‘The draft version ofMalenkov’s speech was discussed under the direction of Stalin onthe presidium and several times corrections were made.’’15 TheXIX Congress file contains the version of Malenkov’s report onwhich Stalin’s corrections and handwritten comments weremade.16 It is noteworthy that these comments were largely edito-rial in nature, although some of them obviously reveal differencesin Stalin’s and Malenkov’s views. First, Stalin edited to ‘‘soften’’Malenkov’s critical tone concerning the failures of the economy.He deleted adjectives like ‘‘frequent’’ or ‘‘numerous’’ as appliedto errors and mistakes in the economy; ‘‘numerous’’ cases of bad-quality production became ‘‘cases of bad-quality production.’’17

Second, Stalin showed his flair for colorful terminology: Malen-kov’s ‘‘evil persons who want to overthrow the regime’’ becameStalin’s ‘‘those who want to stab us in the back.’’18 Third, Stalindeleted some references to ‘‘Stalin-hero,’’ but he left many suchreferences untouched; he cut two pages glorifying Stalin at the endof the report and put the word ‘‘Party’’ in place of ‘‘Stalin.’’Fourth, Stalin made a number of modest corrections to Malen-kov’s suggested control figures for the fifth five-year plan (as re-ported in the chapter by Gregory). Stalin’s relatively modestcorrections can be interpreted as putting more ‘‘social optimism’’into Malenkov’s speech and as confirming that everything wasunder control. The best example of the latter is Stalin’s editing

14. N. Khrushchev, Vospominania, p. 109.15. L. Kaganovich, Pamyatnie zapiski (Moscow:Vagrius, 1996), p. 492.16. Hoover 2.2590 (592-1-4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). All these files contain different

versions of Malenkov’s report, officially called Otchetniy Doklad TsK. File 7 con-tains Stalin’s corrections, dated July 17, 1952.

17. 2.2590 (592-1-6). Subsequent citations give only the pages of the report(following the archival pagination).

18. 2.2590 (592-1-6).

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of Malenkov’s ‘‘After the war the inflow of new party membersslowed’’ to Stalin’s ‘‘The Party decided to slow down the recruit-ment of new party members.’’ The only case in which Malenkovdid not accept Stalin’s correction, with respect to the ‘‘social opti-mism’’ issue, was the passage on the role of satire in Soviet litera-ture where Malenkov insisted that Soviet artists must ‘‘with thefire of satire burn out of Soviet life everything that is negative,rotten, dead.’’ Stalin probably thought it was too harsh a methodto be used in optimistic Soviet literature.19

Malenkov’s report to the XIX Party Congress covered foreignpolicy, internal policy, and party issues. The speech failed to breaknew ground, but it did raise the notion of peaceful coexistence;among the traditional invectives against the ‘‘American imperial-ism,’’ Malenkov said: ‘‘We are confident that, in peaceful compe-tition with capitalism, the socialist system will prove itssuperiority more strikingly with each passing year. But we haveno intention whatever of forcing our ideology or our economicsystem on anybody. The export of revolution is nonsense, saysComrade Stalin. Each country will make its own revolution if itwants to do so, and if it does not want to do so there will be norevolution.’’20 Malenkov was also critical of economic perform-ance, stating, for example, that as a consequence of ‘‘unsatisfac-tory utilization of production capacity and extensive waste dueto mismanagement, many industrial enterprises fail to fulfill theirassignments in lowering unit cost of output and greatly exceedtheir quotas of expenditure.’’21 In his discussion of the party, Ma-lenkov focused on the need for more inner-party democracy andself-criticism: ‘‘The Central Committee has focused the attention

19. In 1955, Khrushchev used this episode in his latter power struggle againstMalenkov, causing additional documents on this issue to be placed in the XIX Con-gress file.

20. English translation here is taken from Current Soviet Policies: The Docu-mentary Record of the Nineteenth Communist Party Congress and the Reorganiza-tion After Stalin’s Death (New York: Praeger, 1953), p. 102.

21. Ibid., p. 113.

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of Party organizations on the task of consistently practicing innerParty democracy and developing criticism and self-criticism.’’22

The Fifth Five-Year Plan: The Main Agenda Item

Party congresses require a major theme. If the XIX Party Con-gress had taken place as originally scheduled in 1947 under Zhda-nov, its theme would have been the new party program. UnderMalenkov-Beria, the major theme became the ratification of thesecond postwar five-year plan—the fifth five-year plan—for theperiod 1951–1955. It is for this reason that the XIX Party Con-gress fond contains extremely rich materials on the origins andpreparation of the fifth five-year plan.

The USSR learned that it was living in the fifth five-year planwhen Pravda published the agenda of the XIX Congress on Au-gust 20, 1952. The state’s official economic publication—PlannedEconomy—had not included a single reference to a new five-yearplan during the period 1949–1952, and the announcement of theexistence of the fifth five-year plan in the fourth number of thisjournal in 1952 was entirely unexpected. Western experts longspeculated on the causes of these delays. Naum Jasny suggestedthat as late as 1951 there was no five-year plan at all, probablybecause of the Korean War and Stalin’s lack of interest. 23 EugeneZaleski speculated that Gosplan had proposed drafting a long-term plan in the summer of 1947 but that project was abandonedbecause of the firing of Voznesensky as head of Gosplan, Stalin’sown ambitious plans for building communism through large con-struction projects, and the Korean War.24

PREPARATION OF THE FIFTH FIVE-YEAR PLANThe Hoover archives allow us to trace the chronology of the FifthFive-Year Plan. Its first draft was prepared already at the end of

22. Ibid., p. 117.23. Naum Jasny, Soviet Industrialization, 1928–1952 (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1961), p. 250.24. Eugene Zaleski, Stalinist Planning for Economic Growth, 1933–1952

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), pp. 395–96.

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May/beginning of June of 1950—half a year before the formalend of the preceding Fourth Five-Year Plan and almost two yearsbefore the calling of the XIX Party Congress. At this time, M.Saburov, the chairman of Gosplan and successor to the executedVoznesensky, submitted three plan documents addressed to Stalin:Report of Gosplan (M. Z. Saburov) ‘‘On the draft directives forpreparing the plan of the economy for 1951–1955 prepared byorder of the Council of Ministers of the USSR,’’ Draft Decree ofthe Council of Ministers ‘‘On directives for the preparation of thefive-year plan for the development of the economy for 1951–1955,’’ and statistical appendixes including the basic indicatorsfor industry.25

The June 1950 draft was prepared by Gosplan for ratificationby the Council of Ministers; since, as of June 1950, there was nointent to call a new party congress, Gosplan assumed that Councilof Ministers (and of course Politburo) ratification would be allthat was necessary. The June 1950 Gosplan plan focused on theproblems of plan fulfillment from 1946 to 1950: the electricitydeficit and its resolution, the need to develop machinery, the oildeficit, the types of machinery to be developed, and rail construc-tion. The 1950 Gosplan report also focused on problems of in-complete capital construction and the failure to reduceconstruction costs, resulting in incomplete construction. In gen-eral, one can say that the 1950 Gosplan draft was a typical five-year plan document that differed little in form and content fromearlier five-year plans; in fact, its format perfectly mirrored thatof the Fourth Five-Year Plan.26

The XIX Party Congress fond contains all subsequent five-year plan drafts arranged chronologically, allowing us to trace themanner in which long-term Soviet plans were formulated and

25. File 16 (2.2591) (592-1-16) contains the original draft of the plan datedJune 3, 1950.

26. ‘‘Zakon o pyateletnem plane vosstanovlenia i razvitiia narodnogo khozi-aistva SSSR na 1946–1950’’ in Bor’ba KPSS za vosstanovlenie i razvitie narodnogokhoziaistva v poslevoennom periode (1945–1953) (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1961),pp. 47–119.

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passed through various state organizations prior to their approvalby political authorities. This process allows us to understand thevarious interest groups at play during the planning process, howthey affected the process, and with what success.

The Process

The first draft of the fifth five-year plan was completed on oraround the end of May 1950 (see chronology in Table 1). It wasfinally approved by the Politburo on June 23, 1952, and by theXIX Party Congress on October 14, 1952. In other words, theprocess of preparation and approval of the fifth five-year plantook more than two years. What happened in this interval? Whatwas the internal process?

We begin by noting two regularities: first, at least at the formallevel, all discussions were based on Gosplan drafts, which servedas the starting point for all deliberations; second, there appearedto be no direct channel of communication between the main plan-ners. All communications were directed to Stalin, and the variousplanning bodies would then react to the others’ positions directlyto Stalin. The Gosplan drafts served as the basis for the discussionof the five-year plan drafts by the two most important alternateplanning agencies—the State Supply Agency, Gossnab, headed byone of Stalin’s oldest associates, Kaganovich, and the Ministry ofFinance, headed by longtime minister Zverev.

A number of conclusions can be drawn based on the chronol-ogy of draft plans shown in Table 1. First, the five-year planningprocess required a great deal of time. The initial Gosplan draftwas completed in early summer of 1950 and the final approval atthe XIX Party Congress was on October 14, 1952—a time spanof more than two years. The chronology shows the vast numberof steps in the process, with Gosplan alone submitting eighteenseparate documents (plans), Gossnab eight plans, and the Minis-try of Finance two commentaries. Second, the chronology showsthree major rounds of discussion: May–June 1950, January 1951,

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Tabl

e1

Ch

ron

olo

gy

of

the

Fift

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Plan

Dat

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1950

May

31G

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mat

eria

lTa

bles

ofth

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lum

eof

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stri

alpr

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tion

May

31G

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ote

Not

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the

Cha

irm

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snab

June

3G

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Gos

plan

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tdr

aft

dire

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Gos

plan

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ecre

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Cou

ncil

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inis

ters

‘‘Abo

utth

edi

rect

ives

for

prep

arin

ga

plan

for

the

nati

onal

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omy

for

1951

–55’

’Ju

ne3

Gos

plan

Supp

lem

ents

Bas

icin

dica

tors

ofth

ede

velo

pmen

tof

the

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omy

for

1951

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1951

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five-

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Gos

plan

Rep

ort

‘‘Abo

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prep

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51–5

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ich

abou

tth

evo

lum

eof

accu

mul

atio

nan

dst

ate

rese

rves

June

7G

ospl

anIn

form

atio

nalm

ater

ial

Bas

icin

dica

tors

ofth

ena

tion

alec

onom

yJu

ne7

Gos

plan

Rep

ort

Abo

utth

edr

aft

ofdi

rect

ives

for

crea

ting

the

5th

five-

year

plan

ofde

velo

pmen

t19

51–5

5

172

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:17 PS

June

7G

ospl

anA

ppen

dix

Bas

icde

velo

pmen

tsof

indi

cato

rsto

the

draf

tfo

rpr

epar

ing

the

dire

ctiv

esfo

rpr

epar

ing

the

plan

June

7G

ospl

anIn

form

atio

nalm

ater

ial

Bas

icin

dica

tors

ofde

velo

pmen

tof

the

nati

onal

econ

omy

acco

rdin

gto

econ

omic

regi

ons

June

7G

ospl

anIn

form

atio

nalm

ater

ial

Bas

icin

dica

tors

for

the

deve

lopm

ent

ofth

em

ost

impo

rtan

tel

ectr

ical

syst

ems

June

7G

ospl

anSu

pple

men

tB

asic

corr

ecti

ons

toth

edr

aftd

irec

tive

sfo

rpr

epar

ing

the

5th

five-

year

plan

pres

ente

dto

the

Cou

ncil

ofM

inis

ters

inJa

nuar

y19

51Ju

ne7

Gos

plan

Not

esN

otes

ofSa

buro

vco

ncer

ning

the

mili

tary

and

spec

ialb

ranc

hes

ofth

eec

onom

yJu

ne7

Gos

plan

Info

rmat

iona

lmat

eria

lsB

asic

indi

cato

rsof

the

5th

five-

year

plan

ofth

ede

velo

pmen

tof

the

nati

onal

econ

omy

June

7G

ospl

anD

raft

Dec

ree

ofth

eC

entr

alC

omm

itte

e‘‘A

bout

the

dire

ctiv

esfo

rpr

epar

ing

the

5th

five-

year

plan

’’Ju

ly17

Gos

snab

Not

esA

bout

the

draf

tdi

rect

ives

for

prep

arin

gth

e5t

hfiv

e-ye

arpl

anJu

ly17

Gos

snab

Info

rmat

iona

lmat

eria

lsPr

elim

inar

yba

lanc

esJu

ly17

Gos

snab

Info

rmat

iona

lmat

eria

lsTa

bles

ofre

sour

ces

and

requ

irem

ents

July

27M

inis

try

ofFi

nanc

eN

otes

Com

men

tary

ofM

inis

try

ofFi

nanc

eA

ug.1

6G

ospl

anN

otes

On

the

draf

tde

cree

ofth

eC

ounc

ilof

Min

iste

rsan

dth

eC

entr

alC

omm

itte

e‘‘D

irec

tive

s..

.’’A

ug.1

6G

ospl

anD

raft

Dec

ree

ofth

eC

ounc

ilof

Min

iste

rsan

dth

eC

entr

alC

omm

itte

e‘‘D

irec

tive

sto

the

prep

arat

ion

ofth

e5t

hfiv

e-ye

arpl

an’’

1952

June

23Po

litbu

roD

ecis

ion

Topr

epar

e‘‘D

irec

tive

sfo

rpr

epar

ing

the

5th

five-

year

plan

’’A

ug.1

5C

entr

alC

omm

itte

eD

ecis

ion

Dec

isio

nof

Plen

umof

Cen

tral

Com

mit

tee

toap

prov

eth

edr

aft

‘‘Dir

ecti

ves’

’A

ug.2

0C

entr

alC

omm

itte

eD

raft

Publ

icat

ion

ofdi

rect

ives

inP

ravd

aO

ct.1

4Pa

rty

Con

gres

sD

irec

tive

sD

irec

tive

sof

the

XIX

Part

yC

ongr

ess

for

the

5th

five-

year

plan

for

the

deve

lopm

ent

ofth

eU

SSR

for

1951

–55

No

te:G

ossn

abap

pare

ntly

used

diff

eren

tda

ting

proc

edur

esfo

rit

sfil

es.T

heG

ossn

abco

mm

enta

ries

refe

rto

the

Gos

plan

draf

tsda

ted

late

rth

anth

eG

ossn

abco

mm

enta

ries

.

173

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:18 PS


and June 1951. There is no evidence of discussion of the fourthproject of August 1951, which appeared in the official Politburo–Council of Ministers document but was not approved. The final‘‘Directives’’ approved by the XIX Party Congress in October1952 was basically the same document as proposed one year ear-lier.

Third, the various planning agencies responded quickly to theother draft plans. The long intervals of inactivity appear to beexplained by the delays of political authorities in pushing theprocess along. These delays cannot be attributed to the need towait for the convening of the XIX Party Congress, because ini-tially it was expected that this plan would be ratified by the Coun-cil of Ministers–Politburo without any benediction by a partycongress. Actual approval of the Fifth Five-Year Plan occurredwith the decision of the central committee to approve the plan onAugust 15, 1952, almost two months before the formal approvalby the XIX Party Congress.

Stalin’s Minor Role

Archival materials relating to the 1930s show Stalin’s intenseinvolvement in five-year planning; Stalin was still actively in-volved in planning as late as the 1949 annual plan (see the chapterby Gregory). We can get some sense of Stalin’s involvement inthe Fifth Five-Year Plan from his written comments and his othercommunications relating to this five-year plan. All the draft plansand agency discussions are addressed directly to Stalin; the num-ber of copies was limited and all are marked ‘‘completely secret,’’with the detailed defense budget marked ‘‘especially secret.’’ Inthe Hoover files, although some documents are accompanied bynotes that indicate corrections made by Stalin himself, usually inthe form of markings and handwritten comments, few of the doc-uments contain any sign of Stalin’s own corrections; there areonly underline marks indicating that the text had been read. Sta-lin’s few remarks reveal his preferences. In a rare example of per-

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:18 PS


sonal intervention, Stalin marked clearly his preference formilitary over consumer production, when he demanded an in-crease in aluminum production for aviation and a decrease in ‘‘ci-vilian output.’’27 In another isolated comment, Stalin asked aboutthe possibility of decreasing coal imports. Few though they are,these remarks reinforce the standard image of a dictator con-cerned with the creation of a heavy industry base, self-sufficientfrom capitalist economies.

Our conclusion is that we do not see the same type of intenseinvolvement by Stalin in the Fifth Five-Year Plan as in the five-year plans of the 1930s. A number of explanations can be offered,ranging from Stalin’s growing interest in long-term technologicalplans, his realization that five-year plans really did not matter, orthe simple fact that Stalin was ill and old and not up to the time-consuming job of reviewing all these statistical calculations.

The Battle among Agencies

In the prewar period, no single organization handled supply.Supply contracts were formulated in general terms by Gosplanand the contracts themselves were handled by producer supplyorganizations or specialized supply organizations. The most im-portant change in the management of the economy was the for-mation of the State Committee for Material and EquipmentSupply (Gossnab) on December 15, 1947.28 Gossnab was set upto organize the distribution of materials among major wholesaleusers, such as ministries and territorial organizations. To add

27. Memo of Kaganovich to Stalin (‘‘Ob ekonomii svintsa’’), 592-1-19.28. Kaganovich wrote (Pamyatuie zapiski, p. 494) about the founding of Goss-

nab: ‘‘In the end of 1947, Stalin proposed to the Politburo to split Gosplan intotwo different agencies—Gosnab and Gossnab. Gossnab was to be the independentdistributor of all state resources. As justification, Stalin pointed out the growingcomplexity of the economy. The director of Gossnab was supposed to be one ofthe deputy chairmen of the Council of Ministers and a member of Politburo. Theadministrative core of the new agency was mostly transferred from former func-tional supply agencies—Glavneftsbyt, Glavmetallsbyt, Glavuglesbyt, Glavlessbyt, andGlavkhimsbyt.’’

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:18 PS


weight to Gossnab, one of Stalin’s most experienced aides,L. Kaganovich, was named the first director of Gossnab. Goss-nab’s most important task was to battle the ministries’ strugglefor excess materials by working out ‘‘scientific’’ norms of materi-als usage. Beginning in 1948, Gossnab proposed 1800 norms forindustry; by 1950, it was using 6000 norms.29

Gossnab was thus added to Gosplan and to the Ministry ofFinance as the third organization responsible for planning. Impor-tantly, the five-year planning process did not provide a formalvenue for the industrial ministries to react to the proposals ofGosplan, as they most obviously did in the case of annual plans.In the five-year planning process only designated state committeeswere allowed to present their commentaries on Gosplan’s drafts.30

The agency commentaries were signed by the heads of the threeagencies, Saburov (Gosplan), Kaganovich (Gossnab), and Zverev(Ministry of Finance), but some specialized reports were signedby department heads. All documents were addressed directly toStalin; therefore, there was no formal channel from one agency toanother (although informal channels may have existed).

Gosplan

Table 2 shows five drafts of the Fifth Five-Year Plan. The coreof Gosplan’s five-year plan drafts were the physical targets for127 products (1955 end targets with 1950 figures given for refer-ence). These products included coal, steel, number of automo-biles, locomotives, tons of grain and milk products, and so on.Gosplan also provided aggregate figures for national income,gross industrial production (broken down into sectors A and B),gross agricultural production, and the cumulated total of capital

29. E. Lokshinam, ‘‘Normirovanie raskhoda syriia i materialov v proizvods-tve,’’ Planovoe khoziaistvo, no. 6, 1950.

30. Other state committees were also permitted a say, such as the Central Sta-tistical Administration, the State Technology Committee, the State ConstructionCommittee, and the Central Committee of Trade Unions.

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:18 PS

Tabl

e2

Phys

ical

Targ

ets

of

the

Dra

fts

of

the

Fift

hFi

ve-Y

ear

Plan

(Ju

ne

1950

;Jan

uar

y,Ju

ne,

and

Au

gu

st19

51)

Res

ults

GP

GS

MF

GP

GS

GP

MF

GP

Fina

l-19

52G

KS-

Nom

encl

atur

eM

easu

re(6

/50)

(6/5

0)(6

/50)

(1/5

1)(1

/51)

(6/5

1)(6

/51)

8/51

(Con

gres

s)19

57)

Pig

iron

Mln

.ton

s31

36.5

3336

3633

.333

.88

33.3

Stee

lM

ln.t

ons

41.5

4742

.747

.446

.143

.244

.29

45.3

Rol

led

stee

lM

ln.t

ons

31.5

3632

.535

.233

34.0

435

.3Sm

all-

sect

ion

stee

lM

ln.t

ons

2.4

2.3

2.3

2.2

2.29

Plat

est

eel

Mln

.ton

s3.

83.

93.

93.

63.

79W

ire

rod

Mln

.ton

s2.

31.

81.

81.

75C

arbo

nst

eel,

shee

tM

ln.t

ons

1.4

Car

bon

stee

l,so

rtM

ln.t

ons

2.7

Allo

yed

sort

Mln

.ton

s1.

75St

ruct

ural

stee

lM

ln.t

ons

0.13

50.

060.

07C

alib

rate

dst

eel

Mln

.ton

s0.

85R

einf

orci

ngir

onM

ln.t

ons

0.7

Bro

ad-b

rim

med

gird

ers

Mln

.ton

s0.

4L

ow-a

lloye

dro

lled

stee

lM

ln.t

ons

0.3

Hig

h-ca

rbon

wir

eM

ln.t

ons

0.08

Stee

lpip

esM

ln.t

ons

44.

33.

653.

5St

eelp

ipes

,cas

ing

Mln

.ton

s0.

726

611

Stee

lpip

es,d

rilli

ngM

ln.t

ons

0.17

114

7St

eelp

ipes

,pum

p-co

mpr

esso

rsM

ln.t

ons

0.22

621

5St

eelp

ipes

,oil

pipe

lines

Mln

.ton

s0.

144

380

Stee

lpip

es,c

rack

ing

Th.

tons

4343

Stee

lpip

es,r

olle

dM

ln.t

ons

0.6

Stee

lpip

es,s

eam

less

rolle

dM

ln.t

ons

0.26

Stee

lpip

es,b

all-

bear

ing

Mln

.ton

s0.

15C

oke

Mln

.ton

s46

5148

.251

4743

.6C

oke-

met

allu

rgy

Mln

.ton

s45

177

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:18 PS

Tabl

e2

(con

tinu

ed)

Res

ults

GP

GS

MF

GP

GS

GP

MF

GP

Fina

l-19

52G

KS-

Nom

encl

atur

eM

easu

re(6

/50)

(6/5

0)(6

/50)

(1/5

1)(1

/51)

(6/5

1)(6

/51)

8/51

(Con

gres

s)19

57)

Iron

ore

Mln

.ton

s65

.874

.180

7571

.9A

lum

iniu

mM

ln.t

ons

0.4

0.5

0.5

0.57

0.5

0.5

406.

25C

oppe

rM

ln.t

ons

0.49

0.6

0.44

Refi

ned

copp

erM

ln.t

ons

0.4

0.54

50.

460.

620.

460.

442,

387.

43L

ead

Mln

.ton

s0.

325

0.32

50.

325

0.32

50.

275

278.

09Z

ink

Mln

.ton

s0.

40.

40.

40.

35M

agne

sium

Th.

tons

1818

Tin

Th.

tons

2020

1717

1512

.05

Nic

kel

Th.

tons

3969

5970

6059

.23

Tun

gste

nT

h.to

ns15

1816

Mol

ybde

num

Th.

tons

5.7

8.9

119

Cob

alt

Th.

tons

1.1

1.15

1.2

1.2

Stib

ium

Th.

tons

4.3

Stib

ium

-ele

ctro

lyte

Th.

tons

3.2

Ele

ctri

cpo

wer

Bln

.kW

h16

717

016

917

517

516

6.5

163.

7717

0.2

Hyd

roel

ectr

icpo

wer

Bln

.kW

h32

3532

23.2

Ele

ctri

cpo

wer

—U

ral

Bln

.kW

h31

.527

.4E

lect

ric

pow

er—

Kem

erov

oB

ln.k

Wh

7E

lect

ric

pow

er—

Cen

tral

regi

onB

ln.k

Wh

3126

.5E

lect

ric

pow

er—

Sout

hB

ln.k

Wh

23.4

24.2

Ele

ctri

cpo

wer

—U

zbek

.B

ln.k

Wh

3.36

Coa

lM

ln.t

ons

378

400

384

410

384

370

372.

6139

1.3

Coa

l-co

keM

ln.t

ons

9282

77.3

6Pe

atM

ln.t

ons

4747

4644

44.7

050

.8Pe

trol

eum

Mln

.ton

s60

6060

6060

70.2

570

.8G

asB

ln.c

bm13

.552

10.7

10.7

10.3

56M

etal

cutt

ing

mac

hine

sT

h.pi

eces

9090

9080

7211

7.1

Met

alcu

ttin

gm

achi

nes—

larg

e,he

avy,

and

sing

le-d

esig

nty

pes

Th.

piec

es3.

94.

34

4.34

44.

34.

33.

993.

54

178

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:19 PS

Inst

rum

ents

Mln

.rub

2,85

04,

500

3,50

04,

108.

70V

acuu

min

stru

men

tsM

ln.p

iece

s12

010

0M

etal

lurg

ical

equi

pmen

tT

h.to

ns20

022

0.5

200

232

225

210.

2317

2.1

Stea

man

dga

stu

rbin

esM

ln.q

W6.

846.

846.

26.

235

5.9

5,42

8.00

4.06

9H

ydra

ulic

turb

ines

Mln

.qW

1.93

1.6

2.77

2.69

92.

582,

454.

151.

4919

Boi

lers

Th.

sqm

1,00

096

299

290

096

4.29

Boi

lers

—hi

ghca

paci

tyT

h.sq

m31

531

5St

eam

turb

ine

gene

rato

rsM

ln.q

W3.

25

3.35

3.5

3.2

3.11

3H

ydra

ulic

turb

ine

gene

rato

rsM

ln.q

W1.

82.

81.

4127

Pow

ertr

ansf

orm

ers

Mln

.kW

2020

2527

2826

Ele

ctri

cm

otor

s(A

C)

Mln

.kW

11.5

11E

lect

ric

mot

ors

(les

sth

an10

0w

.)M

ln.p

iece

s1.

75E

lect

ric

mot

ors

(mor

eth

an10

0w

.)T

h.pi

eces

2330

2312

.5C

able

Th.

tons

350

310

329

315

Mot

orve

hicl

esT

h.pi

eces

700

700

450

400

436.

3644

5.3

Tru

cks

Th.

piec

es55

555

536

240

032

9T

ruck

sw

ith

gas

gene

rato

rsT

h.pi

eces

120

Tru

cks

wit

hga

sba

lons

Th.

piec

es60

Dum

ptr

ucks

Th.

piec

es13

2D

iese

ltru

cks

(7–1

0to

ns)

Th.

piec

es16

Die

selt

ruck

s(1

0–1

2to

ns)

Th.

piec

es4.

2T

ract

ors

Th.

piec

es19

019

012

916

3.5

225

135.

2316

3.4

Tra

ctor

s(1

5hp

)T

h.pi

eces

396.

7627

732

1.8

Tra

ctor

s—ga

sge

nera

tors

Th.

piec

es28

Agr

icul

tura

lmac

hine

sM

ln.r

ub7

44.

353.

65G

rain

com

bine

sT

h.pi

eces

5040

5040

48M

ainl

ine

stea

mlo

com

otiv

esT

h.pi

eces

1.57

71.

577

1.25

51.

025

9.65

0.65

4M

ainl

ine

elec

tric

loco

mot

ives

Th.

piec

es0.

227

0.22

70.

205

0.20

50.

194

Mai

nlin

efr

eigh

tca

rsT

h.pi

eces

4141

3228

2434

.4M

ainl

ine

pass

enge

rra

ilroa

dca

rsT

h.pi

eces

2.87

2.8

2.05

1.8

1.77

2

179

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:19 PS

Tabl

e2

(con

tinu

ed)

Res

ults

GP

GS

MF

GP

GS

GP

MF

GP

Fina

l-19

52G

KS-

Nom

encl

atur

eM

easu

re(6

/50)

(6/5

0)(6

/50)

(1/5

1)(1

/51)

(6/5

1)(6

/51)

8/51

(Con

gres

s)19

57)

Oil

equi

pmen

tT

h.to

ns14

015

215

015

9.09

Che

mic

aleq

uipm

ent

Th.

tons

200

160

138.

9511

1.2

Pum

psce

ntri

fuga

lT

h.pi

eces

9085

Pum

ps—

pist

onT

h.pi

eces

2313

Exc

avat

ors

Th.

piec

es5

5.5

3.75

5.25

Bul

ldoz

ers

Th.

piec

es6.

87

3.7

7.51

1G

rade

rsT

h.pi

eces

32.

41.

014

Scra

pers

Th.

piec

es4

4.5

3.5

2.02

5Sp

inni

ngm

achi

nes

Th.

piec

es1,

050

900

1,00

095

02,

040

Loo

ms

Th.

piec

es30

.530

2516

Tug

vess

els,

rive

rT

h.H

P12

7.95

156.

514

1B

arge

sw

ith

engi

nes

Th.

tons

5545

45B

arge

sw

itho

uten

gine

sT

h.to

ns90

4.2

1,04

7.7

1,08

490

0.8

Tug

vess

els,

sea

Th.

HP

96.6

561

61Sh

ips,

sea

Th.

tons

324.

7513

7.5

123.

533

7.88

Ship

s,ri

ver

Th.

tons

19.5

42.9

542

.95

42.9

5Fi

shin

gsh

ips

Th.

HP

126.

410

4.4

56.6

7A

mm

onia

Th.

tons

970

1,24

01,

030

930

Soda

ash

Th.

tons

1,64

01,

900

1,70

81,

738

1,70

81,

495

1,39

6.35

Cau

stic

soda

Th.

tons

570

650

570

647

570

536

581.

4856

3.4

Sulf

uric

acid

Mln

.ton

s4.

34.

176

Inor

gani

cfe

rtili

zers

Th.

tons

8,05

010

,500

9,70

09,

700

9,30

09,

502.

179,

640

Am

mon

ium

nitr

ate

Mln

.ton

s1.

9Su

perp

hosp

hate

Mln

.ton

s5

KC

IM

ln.t

ons

1.13

5A

mm

oniu

msu

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eM

ln.t

ons

0.73

5Sy

nthe

tic

rubb

erT

h.to

ns30

048

030

042

230

030

030

0.00

Nat

ural

rubb

erT

h.to

ns22

20

180

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:19 PS

Hau

ling

ofco

mm

erci

alti

mbe

rM

ln.c

bm24

630

024

630

024

624

424

0.91

212.

1L

umbe

rM

ln.c

bm34

9060

8060

6275

.6Pa

per

Th.

tons

1,84

02,

300

1,84

52,

117

1,84

51,

755

1,74

3.06

1,86

2C

ellu

lose

Th.

tons

1,90

02,

100

1,81

0C

emen

tM

ln.t

ons

2020

23.5

2525

2522

.45

22.5

Win

dow

glas

sM

ln.s

qm10

011

595

8030

4.76

99.8

Con

stru

ctio

nbr

ick

Mln

.pie

ces

3035

2325

3028

,630

.71

20.8

Soft

roofi

ngm

ater

ials

Mln

.sqm

395

395

510

460

503.

5A

sbes

tos

shin

gles

Mln

.pie

ces

1,60

01,

900

1,60

01,

800

1,60

01,

600

1,41

9.80

Gin

ned

cott

onM

ln.t

ons

2.5

2.38

2.38

1.96

5C

otto

nte

xtile

sM

ln.m

eter

s6,

500

7,15

07,

000

6,50

06,

600

6,68

07,

600

6,58

06,

268.

525,

905

Woo

len

text

iles

Mln

.met

ers

220

240

220

220

190

245

300

240

236.

9225

2.3

Lin

enM

ln.m

eter

s50

062

066

055

050

050

030

5.5

Silk

text

iles

Mln

.met

ers

200

220

230

210

240

245

260

525.

8A

rtifi

cial

fiber

Th.

tons

113

113

113

133

133

110.

5L

eath

erfo

otw

ear

Mln

.pie

ces

350

370

324

365

300

375

350

315.

4127

4.3

Hos

iery

Th.

piec

es90

096

085

091

594

590

077

2.2

Mea

tT

h.to

ns2,

800

2,80

02,

900

2,90

02,

400

2,41

2.57

2,52

4Fi

shT

h.to

ns3,

025

3,17

53,

000

3,00

02,

900

2,82

8.40

2,73

7B

utte

rT

h.to

ns60

066

060

060

055

055

6.47

463

Veg

etab

leoi

lT

h.to

ns1,

540

1,54

01,

500

1,70

01,

500

1,35

01,

381.

211,

168

Suga

rT

h.to

ns4,

300

4,30

04,

500

4,70

04,

500

4,85

04,

200

4,47

6.65

3,41

9So

apT

h.to

ns1,

460

1,56

01,

425

1,42

51,

200

1,07

7C

rude

alco

hol,

food

Mln

.dkl

7070

7675

Flou

r(c

entr

aliz

edre

sour

ces)

Mln

.ton

s19

1919

.521

.519

.5G

roat

sT

h.to

ns1,

600

2,00

02,

000

1,70

0Pe

trol

eum

,refi

nery

Mln

.ton

s59

5960

Ben

zine

,avi

atio

nM

ln.t

ons

3.72

3.72

3.6

Ben

zine

,aut

omob

ileM

ln.t

ons

13.7

913

.79

11K

eros

ine

Mln

.ton

s8.

618.

616.

5D

iese

loil

Mln

.ton

s7.

37.

38.

1H

eati

ngoi

lM

ln.t

ons

6.83

614

.8D

iese

llub

rica

teM

ln.t

ons

0.36

0.41

7Sh

ip-o

ilM

ln.t

ons

1.55

2.4

181

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:19 PS

Tabl

e2

(con

tinu

ed)

Res

ults

GP

GS

MF

GP

GS

GP

MF

GP

Fina

l-19

52G

KS-

Nom

encl

atur

eM

easu

re(6

/50)

(6/5

0)(6

/50)

(1/5

1)(1

/51)

(6/5

1)(6

/51)

8/51

(Con

gres

s)19

57)

Avi

atio

nlu

bric

ate

Th.

tons

260

350

Gas

from

coal

and

oils

hale

Bln

.cbm

2.85

Com

pres

sors

Th.

piec

es40

5050

Com

pres

sors

(40

–100

)T

h.pi

eces

0.7

Tir

esM

ln.p

iece

s16

.3C

ross

tie,

larg

esc

ale

Mln

.pie

ces

7585

84St

anda

rdho

mes

Mln

.sqm

5.9

Pape

rboa

rdM

ln.t

ons

0.6

Asb

esto

sT

h.to

ns60

060

069

0Pi

pes,

asbe

stos

Th.

km15

15Pi

pes,

sew

erag

eT

h.to

ns35

035

032

0T

iles,

met

lakh

aT

h.sq

m4,

000

7,00

03,

000

5,98

03,

000

Sorl

ime

Th.

tons

8,00

010

,000

Gyp

sum

Th.

tons

5,00

08,

000

Stat

iona

ryoi

ldra

inag

em

achi

nes—

Ura

lmas

hT

h.pi

eces

0.75

0.38

Loc

omob

iles

Th.

piec

es14

Loc

omob

iles,

high

capa

city

Th.

piec

es1.

2E

quip

men

t,cr

ushi

ngT

h.to

ns40

Eng

ines

,gas

gene

rato

rsT

h.pi

eces

7Pl

ywoo

dM

ln.c

bm1.

21.

31.

21.

09W

ood

pulp

Mln

.ton

s0.

86Pr

ess

and

forg

ing

mac

hine

sT

h.pi

eces

12.1

612

.465

12.4

6510

.319

.4

No

te:G

P�

Gos

plan

;GS

�G

ossn

ab;M

F�

Min

istr

yof

Fina

nce.

182

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:19 PS


investment over the five-year period, all expressed in differentprices of 1950 (January 1 and July 1). Other figures that are ag-gregated in money terms were trade turnover, economies from thelowering of production costs, average annual wages, and the wagefund. The reduction in production costs of industry and laborproductivity growth were given in percentage terms, and twolabor targets—the total number of workers and employees andthe number of students—were also given. Gosplan also providedbreakdowns of investment for 52 agencies expressed in constant1950 prices. Gosplan’s defense department provided very detaileddefense equipment plans for the five-year period (under the labelof completely secret, special importance), broken down for eachyear of the five-year period for 100 defense products and suppliesin physical units. Thus the defense budget listed almost as manyproducts in physical units as did the Gosplan plan for the entireeconomy. Gosplan’s defense budgets also gave monetary aggre-gates for spending broken down into seven product categories.That there are no recorded discussions of the defense plan byother agencies suggests that it was prepared only by Gosplanfor Politburo approval. Various defense plans are presented inTable 3.

The narrative to the Gosplan documents lays out the variousdirectives that the plan is supposed to fulfill. The main targetswere the growth of industry (at 12 percent per year), with heavyindustry growing at 13 percent and light industry at 11 percent.The plan also gives growth rates for 30 products in physical unitsranging from iron and coal to vegetable oil and fish. Capital in-vestment in the Fifth Five-Year Plan was set at double that of theFourth Five-Year Plan. National income should increase by 60percent, retail prices should fall by 35 percent, capital investmentin housing should double, and so on. Gosplan’s 1952 narrativereport required 26 pages to cover these priorities, ranging fromthe most general targets to specific construction projects.

With the exceptions of investment funds to be allocated tospecific agencies and the quite detailed defense equipment and

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Table 3Defense Plans, Fifth Five-Year Plan:

Military equipment supply for 1951–1955

Draft of Jan. 23, 1950, Min. Rub. Prices 19501950

(results) 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 Total

Aviation 8750 13600 16000 18000 19500 20500 87600Weapons 2380 3780 5210 6900 8510 9280 33680Navy (ship construction) 5340 6230 7930 9230 10860 12400 46650Ammunition 2550 4640 6400 7600 9600 10500 38740Armored technics 1110 2120 3710 5190 6760 7910 25690Military-technical equipment 2270 4020 4900 5980 7220 8340 30460—Radiolocation technics 1100

Total 24120 36940 47200 56800 66860 74100 281900Source: 2.2591 (592-1-17)

Draft—1951 (no date available), Min. Rub. Prices Jan. 1, 19511951 1952 1953 1954 1955 Total

Aviation 11000 15000 16530 16700 17310 76540Weapons 3000 4450 5980 7330 8070 28830Navy (ship construction) 6450 8200 9450 11350 12780 48230Ammunition 3990 5660 6770 8630 9460 34510Armored technics 1460 2320 3870 4660 5060 17370Military-technical equipment 4000 4800 5600 6900 8000 29300—Radiolocation technics 1940 4370 6890 8970 11300 33470

Total 32920 43160 51600 60260 66560 254500Source: 2.2591 (592-1-18)

Explosives (000 tons)1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956

Gunpowder 183 225 n.a. n.a. n.a. 315–575TNT 130 225 n.a. n.a. n.a. 259–290Source: 2.2591 (592-1-17, 18)

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Table 3 (continued)

Equipment Plan—Jan. 23, 195050

Report 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 Five-year

AviationPlanes-total 3954 6800 8360 8805 9230 9600 42795Fighters 2281 3770 4280 4280 4280 4290 20900

jet fighters 2125 3490 4000 4000 4000 4010 19500training fighters 56 600 600 600 600 600 3000

Bombers 480 910 1320 1420 1420 1420 6490jet bombers 156 390 700 800 800 800 3490heavy with piston engines 312 420 420 420 420 420 2100training bombers 8 100 100 150 200 200 750

Transport planes 301 300 350 400 450 500 2000Aircraft engines 14063 19070 21550 25230 26100 27110 119060

jet engines 4973 8670 12310 15210 16330 17300 69820

WeaponsAntiaircraft artillery 882 1600 2418 3460 4300 4700 16478Antitank artillery 100 200 400 600 700 2000Troops artillery 2617 2024 2310 2805 2134 1230 10503Machines guns and automatic

carbines, Th.p. 454.6 650 850 1050 1050 1050 4650Cartridges, 7.62 mm, Mln.p. 1050 1390.5 1495.5 1496.5 1546.5 1546.5 7475.5Cartridges, 12.7–14.5 mm,

Mln.p. 23.6 23.4 39 41 41 46 190.4

Armored weaponryTanks, heavy 340 475 550 635 2000Tanks, medium 1000 1600 2500 3200 3300 3300 13900Tanks, amphibious 180 450 650 800 880 2960

Ammunition, Th.piecesAviation shells 10225.2 20050 26700 34450 41600 48850 171650Artillery shells

37–57 mm 684.4 2200 2680 3430 4190 4800 1730085–152 mm 3681.6 5533 7265 7735 8740 9982 39255203–280 mm 5 2 2.5 2.5 2.5 3 12.5

Mines 160–240 mm 8 110 220 330 340 380 1380Grenades, PG-2 and PG-82 360 1050 1400 1600 2200 2600 8850Demolition aviabombs 37.4 57.9 96 142 207 268 770.9Navy shells

25–45 mm 101 624 1054 1454 1637 4870100–152 mm 17.1 132.5 453.5 587 703 743 2619305–406 mm 0.4 1.737 3.4 3.746 3.834 13.117

Source: 2.2591 (592-1-17, 1-6)

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Table 3 (continued)

Plan 19511951 1952 1953 1954 1955 Five-year

AviationPlanes-total 7260 9510 9525 8250 8855 43400Fighters 4055 5000 5000 3300 3545 20900

jet fighters 3875 4800 4800 3100 3345 19920training fighters 500 600 600 600 600 2900

Bombers 910 1400 1420 1420 1420 6570jet bombers 390 700 800 800 800 3490heavy with piston engines 420 420 420 420 420 2100training bombers 100 100 150 200 200 750

Transport planes 300 350 400 450 500 2000Aircraft engines 19530 22000 25230 26100 27110 119970

jet engines 9130 12800 15210 16330 17300 70770

WeaponsAntiaircraft artillery 882 1600 2418 3460 4300 4700 16478Antitank artillery 100 200 400 600 700 2000Troops artillery 2617 2024 2310 2805 2134 1230 10503Machines guns and automatic

carbines, Th.p. 454.6 650 850 1050 1050 1050 4650Cartridges, 7.62 mm, Mln.p. 1050 1390.5 1495.5 1496.5 1546.5 1546.5 7475.5Cartridges, 12.7–14.5 mm,

Mln.p. 23.6 23.4 39 41 41 46 190.4

Armored weaponryTanks, heavy — 100 450 700 757 2007Tanks, medium 1600 2200 3200 3300 3300 13600Tanks, amphibious 180 500 900 1100 1220 3900

Ammunition, Th.piecesAviation shells 22040 31900 34300 40900 48700 177840Artillery shells

37–57 mm 2750 3820 3900 4190 4800 1946085–152 mm 5576 7226 7692 8740 9982 39216203–280 mm 3.6 3.5 4.5 4.5 5 21.1

Mines 160–240 mm 110 220 330 340 380 1380Grenades, PG-2 and PG-82 1050 1500 1600 2200 2600 8950Demolition aviabombs 62.7 96.6 138 207 268 772.3Navy shells

25–45 mm 101 1370 1400 1500 1600 5971100–152 mm 135.5 207 300 400 500 1542.5305–406 mm 0.4 1.6 3.4 3.7 3.9 13

Source: 2.2591 (592-1-18), P.241–247

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supplies budget, the Gosplan plan was not an operational plan.Even its targets in physical units were too highly aggregated (onlythree types of metal products, one type of coal, metallurgicalequipment, numbers of tractors, and so on). It was a long distancebetween such Gosplan plans and actual production operations.

Gossnab

Whereas Gosplan’s task was to spell out the production tasksof the economy in general terms and to distribute investmentamong agencies, Gossnab’s job was to ensure that the economyhad adequate supplies to meet its production targets. Thus, Goss-nab served as the representative of industrial users. As such, Goss-nab sought to identify and to prevent bottlenecks and otherdisproportions.

Gossnab, therefore, looked carefully at Gosplan’s productionfigures to ensure that they provided sufficient production to meetthe material input needs of the economy’s producers. BecauseGossnab’s job was to prepare a supply plan for industrial users, itcriticized Gosplan for ‘‘routine work’’ that did not address themain problems of the five-year period. Gossnab routinely com-plained that Gosplan’s plans preserved deficits of material inputsand equipment, did not consider interindustry balances, and wereindifferent to the problem of building up the substantial reservesfor production emergencies that Gossnab favored.31 Moreover,Gossnab complained that Gosplan did not pay enough attentionto cost economies, which would allow investment rubles tostretch further, and did not properly calculate the increased out-put that could be expected from capital investment.

Whereas Gosplan limited its ‘‘assortment’’ to 127 products,Gossnab worked with 169 product categories (see Table 2). Thegreater number of categories is explained both by the finer break-downs of products (different types of steel) and by the absence of

31. Gossnab argued for what appears to be enormous reserves, such as a two-to-three-year reserve of nonferrous metals (p. 12).

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some products from Gosplan’s plans. Gossnab plans tended to belonger and contained the key ‘‘balances’’ of the economy—specialist calculations of product supplies (including imports) andindustrial uses for these products. Gossnab prepared 55 balances,each signed by the appropriate department head, broken down byyears of the five-year plan to show that balances could be achievedonly if the (generally higher) Gossnab production figures wereused.

In its drafts, Gossnab argued for more investment, more pro-duction, greater cost economies, more product assortment, andgreater attention to quality. Gossnab pointed out to Stalin what itperceived to be a number of disporportions in the Gosplan draft:For example, it showed that under the Gosplan variants, therewould not be enough steel production to meet the needs of ma-chine building and capital investment.

The Ministry of Finance

The Ministry of Finance’s job was to make sure that the econ-omy produced sufficient tax revenues to pay the government’sbills without printing money. Insofar as the two major revenuesources were profits taxes and turnover taxes on consumer goods,the Ministry of Finance lobbied for more consumer goods, whosesale generated turnover taxes; higher labor productivity, whichlowered costs of production; and more economical use of re-sources, which also lowered costs of production. Lower costs ofproduction benefited the Ministry of Finance by raising enterpriseprofits and raising turnover tax revenues (which were the differ-ence between retail prices and wholesale prices). Consider the fi-nance ministry’s criticisms of Gosplan’s draft: ‘‘Gosplan did notconsider all possibilites to increase national income, raise laborproductivity, and lower production costs and, in connection withthis, understated the volume of national income and national con-sumption.’’ More specifically, the Ministry of Finance criticizedGosplan’s projections for labor productivity growth as being too

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low by historical standards, in spite of the fact that in the currentplan are ‘‘broad measures for the industrialization of constructionand the mechanization of construction work.’’ Moreover, theMinistry of Finance felt that costs could be lowered 22 percentversus Gosplan’s 15 percent figure. The Ministry of Finance alsopointed out that Gosplan had underestimated the growth possibil-ities of cotton and linen, leather products, and silk—consumergoods that could be sold to generate sales tax revenues.

The Ministry of Finance’s criticisms are contained in onlyseven printed pages; Gossnab’s take about 100. Judging from hismarginal notes, Stalin paid much closer attention to the financeministry’s comments than to those of Gossnab.

Gosplan’s Defense

Gosplan defended its calculations quite vigorously, primarilyfrom the criticisms of its rival Gossnab.32 In its 25-page single-spaced response, Gosplan rejected virtually all of Gossnab’s ob-jections and recommendations, beginning with what it regardedas Gossnab’s most serious complaints: that is, in arguing againstGossnab’s proposal to significantly raise ferrous metals produc-tion, Gosplan pointed out that its lower target would not createthe disproportions against which Gossnab warned, and suggestedthat Gossnab did not know what it was doing. According to Gos-plan’s calculations, its rate of growth of ferrous metals was suffi-cient to meet the needs of construction because Gossnab wasusing the wrong construction figure, and to meet the needs of ma-chine building, which Gosplan argued would be producing moreprecision instruments that require less steel. Moreover, if Goss-nab’s proposal to increase ferrous metals production were ac-cepted, capital investment for ferrous metals would have to beincreased by 30 percent—a sum not available in the budget. Gos-

32. See, e.g., ‘‘O zakliuchenniiakh Gossnaba, Gostekhniki, Gosstroiia i TsU poproekty direktiv k sostavleniiu piatiletnogo plana razvitiia narodnogo khoziaistvaSSSR na 1951–1995 gody,’’ June 8, 1950 (592/1/14).

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plan’s defense of its plans was unrelenting: ‘‘Gossnab does notunderstand what it is doing; if we accept Gossnab’s suggestionsthere have to be substantial increases in investment, etc.’’ Gosplanalso attacked Gossnab’s demands for additional reserves: ‘‘Theproposal of Gossnab to increase the production of bricks to 35billion will result in the creation of unnecessary reserves of 5 bil-lion bricks. In addition, one must consider that in order to meetGossnab’s proposal, it would be necessary to build an additional595 concrete slab-block factories with a capacity of 6 million and20 new brick factories every year, requiring an additional capitalinvestment of more than one billion rubles.’’ Gosplan also gave astrong defense of its own balances, such as the coal balance, say-ing that it had constructed them to yield balances of supplies anddemands.

The remarkable feature of the Gosplan defense is that it re-jected all Gossnab’s proposals and stubbornly stuck with its own,even though Gossnab worked at a greater level of detail. If ourinterpretation of marginal marks is correct—that they were madeby Stalin—Stalin reviewed Gosplan’s defense of its own figureswith care and made no corrections. It is noteworthy that Gosplandid not attack the Ministry of Finance’s memos. Its ‘‘defensivecritiques’’ were aimed at Gossnab.

CONCLUSIONS

The Soviet Union waited thirteen years for a new course to beset by Stalin’s designated successors for the postwar era—thoughStalin’s designated successors were not entirely free to choose thiscourse. Stalin, in spite of growing infirmity and loosening of con-trol over his associates, remained the ultimate arbiter. The XIXParty Congress did indeed provide a venue for announcing thecourse of postwar Soviet policy. For those who expected some-thing different, the XIX Party Congress was clearly a disappoint-ment. Malenkov’s keynote speech touched upon peacefulcoexistence, greater party democracy, and criticism of economic

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:22 PS


performance, but it offerred no real solution to the economic de-ficiencies of the economic system that were already apparent inthe early 1930s. There was no discussion of real economic reform,as there had been in the early 1930s (see chapter by Davies). Theeconomy could now be criticized without blaming wreckers, butMalenkov and his associates did not propose alternatives to theproblematic planning system that had been created some twentyyears earlier.

The XIX Party Congress’s major agenda item—approval ofthe Fifth Five-Year Plan—turned out to be a rather meaninglessgesture. The Fifth Five-Year Plan had been formulated and basi-cally completed before the party congress was even called. It wasthe product of technical debates among planning agencies. No-where in this debate was the issue of fundamental changes in pri-orities and procedures raised. The Fifth Five-Year Plan simplyparroted the procedures of the fourth and earlier five-year plans.The archives provide no evidence of strong interest by Stalin, incontrast to his intense interest in five-year plans during the 1930s.He may have come to the conclusion that five-year plans were ahollow exercise.

The Hoover file on the XIX Party Congress, including thepreparation of the Fifth Five-Year Plan, provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of high-level decision making. It even supplies adetailed defense plan, which would have been regarded as a trea-sure trove by earlier Western researchers. The XIX Party Congressfile reveals how five-year plans were constructed, who the partici-pants were, and how outcomes were decided. One surprising fea-ture is that the five-year plan was put together by the technicalplanning agencies, Gosplan, Gossnab, and the Ministry of Fi-nance, with no official input from those who had to fulfill theplan; namely, the industrial ministries and regional authorities.Any process that lacks input from the eventual executors wouldbe lacking in credibility. The new national supply agency, Goss-nab, was not really a representative of industrial consumers; itssole concern was putting together a national supply plan that it

................. 8732$$ $CH8 03-22-07 07:11:22 PS


could claim was balanced between supplies and demands. Fromthe documents, it appears that it constructed its balances mathe-matically through scientific norms, not through communicationswith producers.

The Soviet Union, therefore, entered the postwar era much asit ended in 1991, tied to an economic system that had seriousproblems, whose operations had become routine, each with fewideas as to how to fix it.

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Documents

8 STALIN’S LAST PLAN - Hoover Institution...Stalin’s Last Plan 163 dissension within the Politburo. The power struggle that delayed the XIX Party Congress was the intense battle