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Soviet Union [USSR] Chapter 12. Industry
SINCE THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION of 1917, industry has been
officially the most important economic activity in the Soviet Union
and a critical indicator of its standing among the nations of the
world. Compared with Western countries, a very high percentage of
the Soviet population works in the production of material goods.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) considers constant
growth in heavy industry vital for national security, and its
policy has achieved several periods of spectacular growth. However,
industrial growth has been uneven, with notable failures in light
and consumer industries, and impressive statistics have often
concealed failures in individual branches. And, in the late 1980s,
reliable statistics continued to be unavailable in some areas and
unreliable in others.
The Soviet Union is blessed with more essential industrial
resources than any other nation. Using the most accessible of those
materials, industries such as textiles and metallurgy have thrived
since the 1600s. Large industrial centers developed almost
exclusively in the European part of the country. Examples of such
centers are the
Donbass (see Glossary), the Moscow industrial area,
and the Kursk and Magnitogorsk metallurgical centers, all of which
are still in full operation. But intense industrial activity
eventually exhausted the most accessible resource materials. In the
late twentieth century, reserves have been tapped in the adjacent
regions, especially the oil and gas fields of western Siberia. Most
of the remaining reserves are outside the European sector of the
country, presenting planners with the formidable task of bridging
thousands of kilometers to unite raw materials, labor, energy, and
centers of consumption. The urgency of industrial location
decisions has grown as production quotas have risen in every new
planning period. Moreover, the nature and location of the Soviet
labor force presents another serious problem for planners.
Joseph V. Stalin's highly centralized industrial management
system survived into the late 1980s. Numerous councils, bureaus,
and committees in Moscow traditionally approved details of
industrial policies. The slow reaction time of such a system was
adequate for the gradual modernization of the 1950s, but the system
fell behind the faster pace of high-technology advancement that
began in the 1960s. Soviet policy has consistently called for
"modernization" of industry and use of the most advanced automated
equipment--especially because of the military significance of high
technology. Although policy programs identified automation as
critical to all Soviet industry, the civilian sector generally has
lagged in the modernization campaign. The priority given to the
military-industrial sector, however, not only prevented the growth
that planners envisioned but also caused the serious slowdown that
began around 1970. In a massive effort to restructure the system
under
perestroika (see Glossary), planners have sought ways
to speed decision making to meet immediate industrial needs by
finding shortcuts through the ponderous industrial bureaucracy.
Another strain on the industrial system has been the commitment
to improving production of consumer goods. Nikita S. Khrushchev,
first secretary (see Glossary) of the CPSU in the late 1950s and
early 1960s, initially tried to temper the Stalinist priority of
heavy industry. Khrushchev's idea was followed with varying degrees
of enthusiasm; it became more binding as consumers learned about
Western standards of living and as officials began stating the goal
more forcefully in the 1980s.
Data as of May 1989
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