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Soviet Union [USSR] INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
Beginning with the First Five-Year Plan (1928-32), Soviet
industry was directed by a complicated, centralized system that
proved increasingly inflexible as its equipment base became more
sophisticated. Major problems arose in allocation of resources
between military and civilian sectors, centralized planning of
diverse industries, and systemic changes that would make industry
responsive to rapid technological developments.
The Complexes and the Ministries
In the late 1980s, industry was officially divided into seven
industrial complexes, each
complex (see Glossary) responsible for
one or more sectors of production. The seven complexes, which were
directly responsible to the Council of Ministers, were agroindustrial , chemicals and timber, construction, fuel and energy,
machine building, light industry, and metallurgy. The Ministry of
Light Industry was the only ministry in its complex and was
intended as the foundation for a consumer industry complex, dubbed
the "social complex" by the government. The remaining six complexes
included several ministries to oversee one broad type of industry.
For example, the fuel and energy complex included the all-union
ministries of atomic power, coal, construction of petroleum and gas
enterprises, the gas industry, the petroleum industry, and power
and electrification. The ministry system included three types of
organization: all-union (national level only), union-republic
(national and republic levels), and republic (to run industry
indigenous to a single republic). Ministries in the construction
materials, light industry, nonferrous metallurgy, and timber
complexes were in the union-republic ministry category. But machine
building had all-union ministries because unified national policy
and standards were considered critical in that field. Ministries
with major military output fell outside this ministry structure,
under the superministerial direction of the Military Industrial
Commission. That body oversaw all stages of defense industry, from
research to production, plus the acquisition and application of
foreign technology
(see Soviet Union USSR - Military Industries and Production
, ch.
18).
Data as of May 1989
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