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Soviet Union [USSR] The Economy
Despite Khrushchev's tinkerings with economic planning, the
economic system remained dependent on central plans drawn up with
no reference to market mechanisms. Reformers, of whom the economist
Evsei Liberman was most noteworthy, advocated greater freedom for
individual
enterprises (see Glossary) from outside controls and
sought to turn the enterprises' economic objectives toward making
a profit. Prime Minister Kosygin championed Liberman's proposals
and succeeded in incorporating them into a general economic reform
program approved in September 1965. This reform included scrapping
Khrushchev's regional economic councils in favor of resurrecting
the central industrial ministries of the Stalin era. Opposition
from party conservatives and cautious managers, however, soon
stalled the Liberman reforms, forcing the state to abandon them.
After this short-lived attempt at revamping the economic
system, planners reverted to drafting comprehensive centralized
plans of the type first developed under Stalin. In industry, plans
stressed the heavy and defense-related branches, with the light
consumer-goods branches slighted
(see Soviet Union USSR - Economic Policy
, ch. 11). As
a developed industrial country, the Soviet Union by the 1970s found
it increasingly difficult to maintain the high rates of growth in
the industrial sector that it had sustained in earlier years.
Increasingly large investment and labor inputs were required for
growth, but these inputs were becoming more difficult to obtain.
Although the planned goals of the five-year plans of the 1970s had
been scaled down from previous plans, the targets remained largely
unmet. The industrial shortfalls were felt most sharply in the
sphere of consumer goods, where the public steadily demanded
improved quality and increased quantity. Agricultural development
continued to lag in the Brezhnev years. Despite steadily higher
investments in agriculture, growth under Brezhnev fell below that
attained under Khrushchev. Droughts occurring irregularly
throughout the 1970s forced the Soviet Union to import large
quantities of grain from the West, including the United States. In
the countryside, Brezhnev continued the trend toward converting
collective farms into state farms and raised the incomes of all
farm workers. Despite the wage raises, peasants still devoted much
time and effort to their private plots, which provided the Soviet
Union with an inordinate share of its agricultural goods
(see Soviet Union USSR - Policy and Administration
, ch. 13).
The standard of living in the Soviet Union presented a problem
to the Brezhnev leadership after improvements made in the late
1960s gradually leveled off at a position well below that of many
Western industrial (and some East European) countries. Although
certain goods and appliances became more accessible during the
1960s and 1970s, improvements in housing and food supply were
slight. Shortages of consumer goods abetted pilferage of government
property and growth of the black market. Vodka, however, remained
readily available, and alcoholism was an important factor in both
the declining life expectancy and the rising infant mortality that
the Soviet Union experienced in the later Brezhnev years.
Data as of May 1989
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