ECONOMIC POLICY IN THE USSR SINCE nHRUSHCHEV'S DOWNFALL:
The discussions at the December session of the Supreme Soviet’: of the USSR, as well as the course of debates in the press, have confirmed the conclusion that Khrushchev'ts downfall did not herald a change in orientation by the Soviet bureaucracy but only greater emphasis on the production of consumer goods.
Phere -are now many indications, in addition, that the policy of granting wider rights to factory managers and greater autonomy — to factories or "groups of factories combined in "firms" -- which. was begun tentatively under Khrushchev -- is now gaining headway on. a broad scale.
A key figure in analyzing current economic policy in the USSR is the annual rate of increase of the industrial’ sector that produces consumer goods in comparison with the rate of increase of the industries producing investment: goods. In 1964 these two rates were respectively, 7% and 9%. But the planned: rate of increase was not) actually realized in the consumer goods sector. This signified 3 that the real gap between the two sectors was wider than the planned | Bape
Kosygin, the new head of the Soviet government, announced in his speech at the Supreme Soviet on December 9 that for 1965 the rate of growth. in the consumer..goods.sector would be raised to 7.7%, while the rate of growth in the investment goods sector would be lowered to for 02% At the same time, he promised that these rates. would be actually implemented and that construction (of new apartments for the. ‘Soviet population would be stepped Ups . ;
- In the Supreme Soviet meeting, for the first time since the’ Stalinist regime usurped power in the late twenties, differences were openly voiced, A delegate from the floor challenged one aspect © of the 1965 plan ‘and local delegates from the Baltic countries argued: with a high economic official over the usefulness of setting’ Up ao | central fishing board for all the ports on the Baltic. |
The issues, of course, were minor. But the dif ferences Pew ferred to an important problem in economic policy now being debated in the Soviet press; namely, the usefulness of the regional economic bodies called "Sovnarkhozes" that were set up by Khrushchev, ‘and whether or not these bodies should be replaced by combinations of ~~ factories or "firms" of the same industrial branch. The issue is whether to revert from "regional" bodies to "vertical" ones. (The . Sovnarkhozes replaced so-called “industrial ministries" which: Stalin” : set at the head of each branch of industry.)
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