Tenth five-year plan (Soviet Union)

The Tenth Five-Year Plan, or the 10th Five-Year Plan of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a set of goals designed to strengthen the country's economy between 1976 and 1980. The plan was presented by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin at the 25th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Officially the plan was normally referred to as "The Plan of Quality and Efficiency".

The 25th Congress and development

Alexei Kosygin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers presented the plan at the 25th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1976. General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev told the Central Committee (CC) in an annual address in October 1976 that "Efficiency and quality" was to become the plan's official motto.^[1] Brezhnev claimed that the Soviet economy faced declining growth due to slow technological progress at home hence the plan emphasised the need to buy foreign technology.^[2] Soviet agriculture was given top priority in the plan, with Brezhnev stating that investment in agriculture (at 27 percent during the Tenth Five-Year Plan) must stay close to at least the same level during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan as it did during tenth.^[3] Investment in chemical and petrochemical industry doubled in the Tenth Five-Year plan in comparison with its predecessor.^[4]

It was reported that the Political Bureau (Politburo) rejected the draft of the Tenth Five-Year Plan twice because it demanded too little growth in the consumer goods sector of the economy.^[5]

Republic	Growth in industrial output in percent (according to the USSR)
	Outcome 9th Plan	Planned 10th Plan	Outcome 10th Plan
Soviet Union	43%	36%	24%
Armenian SSR	45%	46%	46%
Azerbaijan SSR	50%	39%	47%
Belorussian SSR	64%	43%	42%
Estonian SSR	41%	26%	24%
Georgian SSR	39%	41%	40%
Kazakh SSR	42%	40%	18%
Kirghiz SSR	52%	37%	30%
Latvian SSR	36%	27%	20%
Lithuanian SSR	49%	32%	26%
Moldavian SSR	55%	47%	32%
Russian SFSR	42%	36%	22%
Tajik SSR	39%	39%	30%
Turkmen SSR	54%	30%	12%
Ukrainian SSR	41%	33%	21%
Uzbek SSR	39%	39%	30%

Brezhnev had proposed in March 1974 that the two major projects in the plan would be (1) construction of the Baikal Amur Mainline railway in Siberia, and (2) rural development of the backward non-chernozem zone of European Russia.^[6]

Fulfillment

During the term of the plan, renovation of enterprises in the oil refining industry made up two thirds of national capital investment.^[7] Due to the Soviet government's emphasise on technological innovation, 10–12 percent of the total investment in machinery and equipment was spent on foreign imported technology. Licensed purchases from the West increased dramatically, with the number of import of licenses issued quadrupling during the Tenth Five-Year Plan compared to the previous five-year plan.^[2] According to a report entitled Oil Supplementary by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the USSR would not fulfill its annual output target of 640 million tons of oil.^[8] Planned increases in labour productivity also failed to materialise.^[9]

Contemporary Soviet statistics show that plan fulfillment was higher in the European part of the USSR and the Caucasus than in Central Asia. In fact, all Central Asian republics fell short of plan targets. For example, in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic's (TSSR) the planned industrial growth was 30 percent, while it grew only by 12 percent in the five-year period.^[10] As seen in the table to the right, only the(Armenian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR) out of the fifteen republics fulfilled planned industrial output, while only two republics increased theirs (the Armenian SSR and the Georgian SSR).^[11] Semion Grossu, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldova, blamed "fundamental flaws in economic activity" which made it close to impossible to fulfill the plan's criteria.^[12] The Baikal Amur Mainline railway in Siberia was officially finished in 1984, but was not fully completed until 1991.

The 1979 Soviet economic reform, or "Improving planning and reinforcing the effects of the economic mechanism on raising the effectiveness in production and improving the quality of work", was an economic reform initiated by Alexei Kosygin. In contrast with many of his earlier reform initiatives, such as the 1965 economic reform, which successfully centralised the economy by enhancing the powers of the ministries, this reform failed to fulfill the rest of the Tenth Five-Year Plan.^[13]

See also

• Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of the Soviet Union
  • First Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)
  • Ninth Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)
  • Eleventh Five-Year Plan (Soviet Union)

References

Notes

1. D. Barry, Donald (1979). Soviet law after Stalin: Soviet institutions and the administration of law. Brill Publishers. p. 123. ISBN 90-286-0679-3.
2. Crawford, Beverly (1993). Economic vulnerability in international relations: the case of East-West trade, investment, and finance. Columbia University Press. p. 91. ISBN 0-231-08297-5.
3. Hanson, Philip (2003). The rise and fall of the Soviet economy: an economic history of the USSR from 1945. Pearson Education. p. 149. ISBN 0-582-29958-6.
4. Chakravarti; R.N.; Basu, A.K. (1987). Soviet Union: Land and People. Northern Book Centre. p. 63. ISBN 81-85119-29-5.
5. Johnston, Michael; Heidenheimer, Arnold J. (1989). Political corruption: a handbook. Transaction Publishers. p. 457. ISBN 0-88738-163-4.
6. Theodore Shabad and Victor L. Mote: Gateway to Siberian Resources (The BAM) p. 73 (Halstead Press/John Wiley, New York, 1977) ISBN 0-470-99040-6
7. Hardt, John Pearce; McMillan, Charles H. (1988). Planned economies: confronting the challenges of the 1980s. M.E. Sharpe. p. 88. ISBN 0-87332-470-6.
8. Hanson, Philip (2003). The rise and fall of the Soviet economy: an economic history of the USSR from 1945. Pearson Education. p. 132. ISBN 0-582-29958-6.
9. Dellenbrant, Jan Åke (1986). The Soviet regional dilemma: planning, people, and natural resources. M.E. Sharpe. p. 111. ISBN 0-87332-384-X.
10. Dellenbrant, Jan Åke (1986). The Soviet regional dilemma: planning, people, and natural resources. M.E. Sharpe. p. 142. ISBN 0-87332-384-X.
11. Dellenbrant, Jan Åke (1986). The Soviet regional dilemma: planning, people, and natural resources. M.E. Sharpe. p. 137. ISBN 0-87332-384-X.
12. Dellenbrant, Jan Åke (1986). The Soviet regional dilemma: planning, people, and natural resources. M.E. Sharpe. p. 108. ISBN 0-87332-384-X.
13. ютуба, любитель (17 December 2010). "30 лет назад умер Алексей Косыгин" [A reformer before Yegor Gaidar? Kosygin died for 30 years ago]. Newsland (in Russian). Retrieved 3 January 2011.