THE ROLE OF TERRITORIAL PRODUCTION COMPLEXES IN SOVIET ECONOMIC POLICY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83T00853R000200130002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 22
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 12, 2007
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: December 1, 1982
• Content Type: REPORT

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o Directorate of on ldential
Soviet Economic Policy
The Role of Territorial
Production Complexes in
Confidential
SOV 82-10186
December 1982
ccPY 4 4 5
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Directorate of Confidential
Intelligence
The Role of Territorial
Production Complexes in
Soviet Economic Policy
Analysis Division, SOVA
welcome and may be directed to the Chief
Office of Soviet Anal sis. C
y omments an queries are
This paper was prepared byI
Confidential
SOV 82-10186
December 1982
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Confidential
Overview
Information available
as of 12 November 1982
was used in this report.
The Role of Territorial
Production Complexes
Soviet Economic Policy
The Soviet leadership is trying to formalize the role and enhance the status
of territorial production complexes (TPKs) in the planning and manage-
ment of the Soviet economy. TPKs are major regional development
projects that are planned and developed as integrated units, bringing
together in one area all the related industries and associated infrastructure
necessary for the exploitation of important natural resources. There are
eight projects given TPK status in the 1981-85 Five-Year Plan, most of
them focused on the development of energy resources in the eastern areas
of the country.
A TPK-centered development policy is seen by the leadership as having
several advantages during a period of slow economic growth when most
new supplies of critical energy and other natural resources must come from
Siberia and other areas far from industrial consumers. In theory, TPKs
would:
? Ease the growing constraints on Soviet capital and labor through
economies of scale.
? Reduce the chronic lack of coordination and cooperation among minis-
tries and local authorities while introducing a measure of decentralized
decisionmaking.
? Lessen ministerial and regional conflict over resource allocation through
the establishment of a hierarchy of officially sanctioned, high-priority
projects.
Leadership recognition of this potential has been apparent since three
TPKs were singled.out for priority development in the 1971-75 Plan period.
TPKs were given increased status and recognition in the July 1979
planning reform decree. USSR Gosplan was tasked to plan and manage
TPKs without regard to the ministerial affiliation of the enterprises
involved. Finally, the 1981-85 Plan called for the creation of a "legal basis"
for TPKs-presumably the adoption of statutes that would codify their
organizational structure, responsibilities, and prerogatives.
iii Confidential
SOV 82-10186
December 1982
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Despite the enhanced status of TPKs, initial indications are that so far the
Soviets have not been able to avoid the same chronic deficiencies that
pervade the traditional ministerial-based system--low productivity of labor
and capital, inadequate supply and poor utilization of raw materials and in-
termediate products, and lack of attention to social infrastructure. TPK
proponents have argued that the solution to these and other problems lies in
the designation of overall project managers for the TPKs. Even if such
"supermanagers" are appointed and given enhanced authority, however,
the history of Soviet regional development projects strongly suggests that
inefficiencies in the economy's use of resources will not be alleviated. Put
more simply, changing the line of authority does not alter the basic nature
of the command economy nor correct its deficiencies.
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The Regional Dimension of Soviet Development Policy 1
The Territorial Production Complex Concept 2
Official Support for a TPK-Centered Investment Strategy 3
Implementing the TPK Concept 7
Territorial Production Complexes Cited in the 1981-85 Plan 11
Territorial Production Complexes of the 11th Five-Year Plan 5
1. Changing Status of Major Regional Development Projects, 4
1971-85
2. Summaries of Soviet Press Comments on Problems at TPKs 8
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The Role of Territorial
Production Complexes in
Soviet Economic Policy
Introduction
If Soviet leaders hope to cope with their major
economic problems in the 1980s-labor and energy
shortages, smaller increments to investment, and de-
clining growth in the productivity of labor and capi-
tal-they must come to grips with the accelerating
costs associated with an increasingly disparate region-
al distribution of the nation's resources. Nearly all
additional increments to labor will come from Central
Asia. A larger share of energy and industrial raw
materials will originate from Siberia. European Rus-
sia will continue to be the industrial heartland of the
USSR. This geographic dilemma presents Soviet
leaders and planners with difficult choices because it
fosters conflict among, sectoral and regional interest
groups by encouraging demands for ever larger re-
source allocations at a time when the leadership is
striving to shift the economy's growth strategy from
simply adding more resources-"extensive growth" in
Soviet parlance-to better use of existing resources-
"intensive growth."
An important element of Moscow's growth strategy in
the 1980s is to concentrate new capital and energy
intensive "green field" industrial investments in the
less developed eastern regions near future supplies of
critical energy resources and other raw materials,
while modernizing outdated and inefficient plant and
equipment centered in the old, industrialized areas of.
the western USSR. Because of the lack of a well-
developed transportation network and other support-
ing infrastructure in Siberia and the Far East and, to
a lesser extent in Central Asia and southern Kazakh-
stan, development and production costs will be enor-
mous. In short, the shift in investment emphasis will
provide the Soviets additional incentives to explore
ways to achieve savings in investment costs.
Accordingly, Soviet planners have focused increasing
attention in recent years on directing investment to a
few select centers of development-territorial produc-
tion complexes (TPKs)-as a means of concentrating
finite resources on projects that are most important.
Eight projects are accorded TPK status in the 1981-
85 Five-Year Plan (FYP), and top Soviet leaders,
including the late President Brezhnev, have stressed
their importance. Soviet planners have emphasized in
their writings that by developing TPKs, better bal-
ance can be achieved between centralized planning of
long-term, high-priority projects and decentralized
decisionmaking that is more responsive to changing
conditions at the local level.
Against this background, this paper will briefly review
the role of regional planning in Soviet development
policy, discuss the major characteristics of TPKs and
the increasing official support for their use, and assess
the problems of using TPKs as focuses for investment
in the 1980s. The appendix briefly describes the TPKs
mentioned in the 1981-85 Plan.
The Regional Dimension of Soviet Development Policy
Regional planning has been an integral part of Soviet
planning from the inception of national economic
planning in the late 1920s. Based on ideology, the
goals of regional planning historically have been to
equalize regional levels of living and development and
to "exploit all resources." Targets and measures to
achieve these goals have been explicitly included in
each succeeding FYP. Since Brezhnev declared the
problem of regional inequality "solved" in 1972,
however, the goal of attaining equality among regions
has given way to the goal of expanding production in
all regions to the maximum extent possible.'
The Soviet commitment to regional planning is evi-
dent in the various large-scale regional development
schemes that were undertaken earlier in Siberia and
in the Sovnarkhoz (Regional Council) Reform during
the Khrushchev years. The history of Soviet develop-
ment in Siberia has been characterized by a series of
high-cost programs designed to tap its vast natural
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resources and to spur subsequent development based
on those resources. A prominent example of this
pattern is the industrial development of the Kuznetsk
Basin (Kuzbas) in the early 1930s, which occurred as
part of a campaign to establish new major iron and
steel centers in the Urals and in Siberia. Development
was initially based on complementary flows of iron ore
eastward from the southern Urals and coal westward
from the Kuzbas. Today, the Kuzbas is the major
industrial center of Siberia with a large, independent
iron and steel industry, as well as large machine-
building, metalworking, and chemical sectors. Later
examples of this approach include the Virgin Lands
scheme in the 1950s, which opened up millions of
acres of agricultural land in western Siberia and
northern Kazakhstan, and the current construction of
the Baikal-Amur Railroad, which will provide access
to the natural resources of Eastern Siberia.
Historically, however, it has been difficult for Soviet
development policy to reconcile the priorities estab-
lished under regional planning with those characteris-
tic of ministerial (sectoral) planning. Regional plan-
ning emphasizes the development of a region's overall
economy and related social infrastructure, but it has
suffered from its lack of concern for centrally directed
national goals and the needs of other regions. Ministe-
rial planning, on the other hand, gives much less
attention to local requirements. The central ministries
traditionally are concerned primarily with the fulfill-
ment of their own assigned national plan targets and
with the well-being of their own workers and manage-
rial hierarchy.
During most of the Soviet period, ministries have
dominated national economic planning. Regional
planning gained ascendancy only for a short period
during the Sovnarkhoz Reform from the late 1950s to
the mid-1960s. This reform, instituted by Khrushchev
in response to the economic problems associated with
the narrow "departmentalism" fostered by the minis-
tries, attempted to decentralize planning and manage-
ment of the economy from the national to the regional
level. The reform, however, was largely a failure
because of the strong resistance from the still power-
ful ministerial bureaucracies as well as the tendency
on the part of regional authorities to create their own
autonomous fiefdoms. In the aftermath of Khru-
shchev's political demise, in 1964, the Sovnarkhoz
Reform was aborted and ministerial planning was in
vogue once again.
During Brezhnev's tenure, as the Soviet economy
roughly doubled its output and became much more
complex, central planners became less able to cope
with the myriad of details involved in planning. Plans
were seldom realistic, had little flexibility, and were
frequently unfulfilled. Moreover, the system of plan-
ning and management hampered the ability of man-
agers to cope with supply bottlenecks and retarded
innovation on the factory floor. Although Soviet
leaders were reluctant to make sharp changes in the
basic nature of the central planning system, the
stringent economic environment of the 1980s has
caused them to adopt numerous marginal reforms.' As
part of these efforts, planners are attempting to ease
the effects of some resource constraints by focusing
investment on a limited number of major regional
development projects-the TPKs.
The Territorial Production Complex Concept
As conceived in Soviet literature, TPKs consist of a
set of interrelated industries and associated economic
and social infrastructure located within a relatively
compact area and focused on the exploitation of one
or more major natural resources.' They are dominated
by a core of large, growing industries based on these
resources that generate the set of forward and back-
ward interindustry linkages that tie the region togeth-
er and stimulate further development. All aspects of
the TPK must be planned together to form an evolv-
ing, unified whole.
Thus, conceptually, TPKs have three important char-
acteristics: a focus on large-scale, high-priority, natu-
ral resource development projects; a high degree of
internal economic, demographic, and geographic in-
terdependence; and a fully coordinated plan for each
TPK and all of its parts. At a time of increasing
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national resource constraints, Soviet leaders and plan-
ners have emphasized the importance of TPKs be-
cause they apparently are persuaded that they:
? Address the need to develop hitherto untapped
distant sources of energy and other raw materials
and establish a hierarchy of regional investment
projects.
? Save capital and labor by taking advantage of
economies of scale.
? Provide a mechanism to coordinate regional devel-
opment and to resolve conflicts between various
combinations of local authorities and participating
ministries.
Official Support for a TPK-Centered Investment
Strategy
Widespread support for strengthening regional plan-
ning and, more specifically, for the incorporation of
TPKs in the planning process has been building since
the late 1960s. Probably the biggest, and certainly the
most important, booster of this approach has been the
USSR State Planning Committee (GOSPLAN).? The
major theoretical development of the TPK concept
including the development of a quantitative (econo-
metric) basis for the concept was provided by the
Siberian Division of the USSR Academy of Sciences,
especially its Institute of the Economics and Organi-
zation of Industrial Production headed by Academi-
cian A. G. Aganbegyan. This interest was somewhat
self-serving since Siberia is the very area where the
TPK approach potentially had the greatest utility.
The 1966-70 Plan hinted at an enhanced role for
TPKs when it referred to a national economic com-
plex to be created in West Siberia and to a Bratsk
lumber industry complex. TPKs received formal offi-
cial recognition in the 1971-75 Plan, which elevated
ongoing regional development projects at Sayan,
Bratsk-Ust'-Ilimsk, and South Tajik to higher priority
status by designating them TPKs (see table 1). High-
level political support for TPKs as an important
element of national planning was first clearly mani-
fested at the 25th Party Congress in February 1976.
In his speech to the Congress, Brezhnev pointed out
the need to improve methods for the integrated
solution of large-scale, nationally important interin-
dustry and regional problems, and he advocated as-
signing responsibility for these tasks to clearly identi-
fied individuals and agencies. Kosygin was even more
specific, identifying as one of the top priority tasks for
the 1976-80 Plan period the development of a pro-
gram for the formation of large TPKs.
The draft guidelines of the 1976-80 Plan raised the
number of TPKs to nine by designating six new high-
priority projects as TPKs: the Kursk Magnetic Anom-
aly (KMA), West Siberia, South Yakutia, Pavlodar-
Ekibastuz, Karatau-Dzhambul, and Mangyshlak. In
addition, three other regional development projects
mentioned in the plan but not as TPKs-Orenburg,
Timan-Pechora, and Kansk-Achinsk-later appeared
as TPKs on official maps of basic construction for the
plan. (Of these 12 projects only two were located in
European Russia-the KMA and Timan-Pechora
TPKs-and only one in Central Asia-the South
Tajik TPK.)
The 1981-85 Plan reversed the trend of growth in the
number of TPKs included in the "Basic Guidelines"
for the USSR. Four projects-Mangyshlak, Oren-
burg, Bratsk-Ust'-Ilimsk, and Karatau-Dzhambul-
were summarily dropped as TPKs without any expla-
nation. These cutbacks probably are related to the
current squeeze on investment, which has left Soviet
planners little choice but to identify the highest
priority national projects and eliminate less promising
ones from the published guidelines.' They also indi-
cate the ease with which projects can be shifted in and
out of top priority status and challenge the strength of
the commitment to any given TPK and, perhaps, to
the TPK concept. Although no new projects were
added, the Timan-Pechora and Kansk-Achinsk pro-
jects were given full status as TPKs within the plan
(see the map).
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Table I
Changing Status of Major Regional Development Projects, 1971-85 a
Timan-Pechora Petroleum, Forest products
natural gas
West Siberia Petroleum, Petrochemicals
natural gas
South Tajik Hydroelectric Aluminum
power
Ninth Five-Year 10th Five-Year 11th Five-Year
Plan Plan Plan
(1971-75) (1976-80) (1981-85)
a There are two major regional development programs that are not
TPKs, the Russian Nonchernozem Zone and the Baikal Amur
Mainline railroad. The latter may spawn several TPKs in addition to
the South Yakutia TPK already under development.
b Identified as a TPK on official maps of the 10th and 11th FYPs.
Despite the cutback in the number of TPKs, the 1981-
85 Plan provided other evidence that some form of
enhanced official role for TPKs is in the wind.
According to the plan, a "legal basis" is to be created
for the interdepartmental administration of TPKs.
The resulting enabling statute, which according to a.
prominent Soviet regional scientist had been drafted
by October 1982, would presumably set out the
organizational structure, responsibilities, and rights of
TPKs, and define these in relation to both existing
ministerial and regional authorities.
Gosplan's Role in Planning TPKs
The July 1979 planning reform decree had anticipat-
ed the need to incorporate TPKs more formally into
the planning process in order to effectively implement
a TPK-centered investment strategy in the 1980s. The
decree instructed Gosplan to prepare a set of compre-
hensive target programs for the development of indi-
vidual regions and TPKs for inclusion in the 1981-85
Plan. More significantly, Gosplan was given explicit
authority to approve the resulting plan indicators and
to exercise control over the fulfillment of these plans
regardless of the ministerial or local affiliation of the
individual components involved.
The relatively general directives in the July 1979
planning decree were formalized later in a set of
Instructions on developing target programs to solve
regional problems and develop TPKs issued by Gos-
plan in January 1980. USSR and republic Gosplans,
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Territorial Production Complexes of the 11th Five Year Plan
The Unded States Government has not recognized
the incorportahon of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
into the Soviet Union Other boundary representation
{ Poland
ech.
1. Kursk Magnetic Anomaly
2. Timan-Pechora
3. West Siberia
4. Pavlodar-Ekibastuz
5. Kansk-Achinsk
6. Sayan
7. South Yakutia
8. South Tajik
Saudi
Arabia
in coordination with and approved by their respective
Councils of Ministers, were directed to identify the
most important regional problems and prepare plans
for their solution.' The Instructions provide for terri-
torial programs both for revitalizing the economy of
developed regions and for bringing into production the
natural resources of new territories. Only the'KMA
TPK, however, is located in the relatively benign
environment of the industrialized areas of the Europe-
an USSR. The remaining TPKs generally focus on
developing resources located in sparsely settled, re-
mote areas with harsh environments and only the
barest of infrastructure to support further develop-
ment. Specifically, these are the areas where almost
all of the critical energy and other natural resources
that the Soviets must develop are located.
These two actions-explicitly assigning responsibility
for planning and overseeing TPKs to USSR Gosplan
and providing TPKs with legal status-are indicative
of the importance the leadership attaches to TPKs.
Substantial decisionmaking authority for the most
important regional projects is being concentrated in a
single planning agency at the center, Gosplan, while
the influence of individual economic ministries on
these projects is being reduced. The measures also
reflect the tension between the leadership's desire to
retain centralized control of the economy and the
need to tap the initiative and knowledge of local
authorities who are being urged to respond effectively
to admonitions for greater productivity.
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Brezhnev announced the first step in implementing
these moves at the 26th Party Congress in February
1981. After noting that TPKs were to play a growing
role in the economy of the Asian regions, Brezhnev
said that integrated interindustry subunits had been
set up in Gosplan to deal with the problem of lack of
coordination among ministries participating in TPK
developments. In particular, he revealed that both a
USSR Council of Ministers' Commission and a Gos-
plan commission located at Tyumen' had been estab-
lished for the West Siberia TPK.'
This is the first time that a USSR Gosplan subdivi-
sion has been established outside Moscow. The Tyu-
men' commission includes representatives of large
production associations, science research centers,
regional government and party organizations, and
USSR and RSFSR Gosplans. Soviet assessments of
the effectiveness of the Gosplan Commission are
mixed. Although its authority was limited to conven-
ing conferences and submitting recommendations, V.
Kuramin, the commission's chief, was claiming by
early 1982 that it was having considerable success in
resolving both long-term and day-to-day problems of
coordination and planning between ministries, and he
called for even further expansion of its
responsibilities!
This rather rosy view, however, must be balanced
against the comments of the commission's deputy
chairman, T. K. Alpatov.' Although Alpatov agreed
that the commission was having some degree of
success, he also insisted that many difficulties
remained:
? The statute creating the commission does not make
clear whether it has responsibilities in those aspects
of the West Siberian TPK not directly related to the
development of the oil and gas industries.
? The commission has to route all its suggestions
through Gosplan in Moscow even on routine matters
and cannot deal with the ministries directly.
? Responsible ministries often respond only partially
or not at all to the needs of other ministries, much
less to simple suggestions from other authorities
when it is in their own interests to ignore them.
progressive step but one that is not necessarily appli-
cable to other TPKs.'? He suggests that this structure
may only complicate management by adding another
bureaucratic step to the decisionmaking process.
Kochetkov proposes giving future interdepartmental
coordinating bodies direct authority over the activities
in the TPK. In essence, without additional authority
the Tyumen' commission and any similar ones created
in the future will suffer the fate of other attempts to
decentralize decisionmaking through regional plan-
ning-that is, they will be hard pressed to force
implementation of proposals which the ministries do
not like.
Investment Cost Savings: Promises and Obstacles
Despite these problems, the actions since 1979 strong-
ly suggest that the leadership has been convinced by
planners and economists that a formal policy for
concentrating investment in production facilities and
infrastructure in TPKs will result in substantial sav-
ings. Aganbegyan, for instance, estimates that devel-
oping industries, natural resources, and infrastructure
in a TPK framework could result in a savings of 15 to
20 percent of total capital investment compared with
a less coordinated location policy." Probst claims that
the savings in infrastructure costs alone would run 25
to 30 percent on the average.12
Thus, the economies resulting from the successful
implementation of a TPK-centered investment strate-
gy would be quite significant given the estimated cost
of the current list of TPKs. For example, the cost of
development at the Pavlodar-Ekibastuz TPK has been
estimated at nearly 8 billion rubles." Investment in
the South Yakutia TPK is expected to approach at
least 2 billion rubles." Investment in the Kansk
Achinsk TPK is estimated at 5 to 6 billion rubles for
industrial construction and 1.2 billion rubles for mu-
nicipal construction." The aggregate anticipated out-
lays for these three TPKs alone of about 17 billion
rubles is equivalent to over 7 percent of industrial
investments in the 1976-80 plan. Investment savings
on the order of those envisioned by Aganbegyan and
Probst in projects of this magnitude would be very
attractive to Soviet leaders.
Those concerns have been echoed by economist A.
Kochetkov, who praises the creation of the parallel
Council of Ministers and Gosplan commissions as a
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Notwithstanding these optimistic estimates for invest-
ment savings, TPKs remain subject to the same kinds
of problems that have bred inefficiency throughout
the entire economy (see table 2). The Soviet press
contains numerous references to shortages of funds,
materials, and labor at these supposedly high-priority
development projects. Similarly, despite the enhanced
authority Gosplan has been accorded since 1979 in
planning TPKs, there continue to be numerous com-
plaints of lack of cooperation and coordination be-
tween ministries and between ministries and local
authorities that leads to duplication of effort, waste of
resources, and failure to meet development plans on
time. Problems in cooperation have also arisen when a
TPK includes more than one regional administrative
unit.
The demand for investment in TPKs, most of which
are major energy projects located in Siberia, also
comes at a time when the older industrialized regions
of the European USSR-especially the central indus-
trial region centered on Moscow, the Ukrainian indus-
trial region centered on the Krivoy Rog and Donets
Basin, and the industrial zone of the Ural Mountains
between Serov and Magnitogorsk-are seeking sub-
stantial funds to modernize existing facilities. The
competition for investment between the relatively
undeveloped east and the more industrialized west
will intensify during the coming decade, if as expect-
ed, investment continues to grow slowly. Should the
Central Asian republics enter the competition for
capital more energetically in the near future, basing
their demands for a larger share on the needs of their
rapidly growing populations, the potential for conflict
would become even more severe. Finally, if TPKs
evolve into politically viable, independent entities,
they might easily add to the investment problem by
competing among themselves for already limited re-
sources.
address the fundamental regional development prob-
lem facing the USSR today-the concentration of
future sources of most raw materials in remote east-
ern regions, separated by great distances from the
bulk of the existing industrial base in the western
areas of the country.
The potential for a successful TPK policy will be
reduced, however, by Soviet inability to implement
effectively the other two basic characteristics of
TPKs: that they should be planned as distinct entities
and that they should have a maximum degree of
internal economic, technologic, and geographic inter-
dependence. Many of the problems commonly found
within the present set of officially supported TPKs
derive directly from the conflict between these char-
acteristics and the everyday reality of the Soviet
economic system. The inability of Gosplan to ensure
adequate resources for important projects, the long
history of bureaucratic resistance to economic re-
forms, interministerial conflict and lack of coopera-
tion over the allocation of scarce resources, and the
consistent failure of responsible ministries and local
authorities to provide adequate social infrastructure
are all problems endemic to the Soviet system that
work against successful implementation of a TPK
policy. Its present ineffectiveness is testified to by the
fact that these problems are just as rampant in the
projects that have enjoyed TPK status the longest, the
South Tajik and Sayan TPKs, as those most recently
given TPK status, Timan-Pechora and Kansk
Achinsk.
Recognizing these problems, Soviet writers have stat-
ed that the best way to resolve them is by planning
and developing TPKs as integrated projects, each
under the control of a single project manager with full
decisionmaking authority. They argue that a strong
project manager might clearly see all the many 25
elements of a TPK and would be able to allocate
resources so as to reinforce interdependence among its
parts, while fostering a greater degree of cooperation
within the TPK between the various sectoral and
regional participants.
Implementing the TPK Concept
The current list of TPKs illustrates well the potential
advantages and problems just discussed that the
Soviet leadership will encounter as it tries to enhance
the role of TPKs. Each of the projects included in the
11th Five-Year Plan satisfies the first characteristic
of a TPK: they all are long-term, large-scale projects
of national significance. Most of them also directly
To be effective, however, these measures must be
accompanied by enough political clout to obtain nec-
essary resources from the center and by adequate
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Table 2
Summaries of Soviet Press Comments on Problems at TPKs
Pavlodar-Ekibastuz TPK Coal industry is criticized for failure South Yakutia TPK
to prepare plans on time (Sotialisti-
cheskaya industriya, 15 July 1980, p.
2). Furthermore, mine construction is
lagging so badly because of insuffi-
cient construction capacity that the
construction combine in charge has
not utilized even one-tenth of the
funds alloted (Izvestiya, 20 June West Siberia TPK
1980, p. 2).
Karatau-Dzhambul TPK Construction of needed housing and
cultural facilities is proceeding too
slowly (Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, 20
May 1978, pp. 1-2). There is a short-
age of at least 7,000 workers and the
vocational-technical school which
was to supply workers will not open
until 1980 with its first graduates
available only three years later
(Tekhnika i nauka, August 1977, pp.
2-5).
An acute shortage of manpower exists.
The lack of coordination requires a
single unified TPK development man-
agement agency above ministry level
which could go directly to USSR Gos-
plan or the USSR Council of Ministers
(Trud, 27 July 1980, p. 2).
This region suffers from a chronic
shortage of manpower, transportation
linkages, and social infrastructure, and
it needs improved management struc-
tures (Sotsialisticheskaya industriya, 1
July 1980, p. 2; Stroitel'stvo trudopro-
vodov, April 1980, pp. 22-24; Pravda,
17 May 1979, p. 2).
Kansk-Achinsk TPK There are many problems in the con-
struction of housing and transportation
facilities (Trud, 27 June 1980, p. 2) plus
inadequate financing and lack of coor-
dination in construction (Sovetskaya
rossiya, 1 November 1979, pp. 1-2).
Mangyshlak TPK There exists a persistent shortage of
skilled workers, a decline in produc- Sayan TPK
tion efficiency, and a high rate of
labor turnover due to lack of decent
housing and facilities (Pravda, 28
October 1979, p. 2).
South Tajik TPK Construction of a few large enter-
prises and major hydroelectric plants
does not contribute to effective utili-
zation of the region's growing labor
resources. Nonetheless, there is a
chronic shortage of manpower (Izves-
tiya academii nauk Tadzhikskoy
SSR, Otdeleniye obshchestvennykh
nauk, March 1979, pp. 41-46). Bottle-
necks and lack of coordination in Timan-Pechora TPK
development of the TPK will continue
until an overall plan for the formation
of the complex, a uniform system of
financing and material and technical
supply, and a special agency to direct
such a plan and system are created
(Pravda, 4 August 1979, p. 2). USSR
Ministry of Nonferrous Metallurgy
annually allocates only half as much
capital to housing construction as is
required (Stroitel' naya gazeta, 10
January 1979, p. 2).
Only 18 of 35 installations planned for
construction in the Khakass A. O.
between 1971 and 1980 are in produc-
tion, and construction is proceeding
very slowly at many other plants, in-
cluding the centerpiece of the TPK, the
Sayansk aluminum plant (Sotsialisti-
cheskaya industriya, 14 Feb 81, p. 2).
Social infrastructure development is
lagging badly, and the attention of the
appropriate ministries has been direct-
ed toward this problem (Ekonomiches-
kaya gazeta, No. 50, December 1981,
p. 10).
The Ministry of Transport Construc-
tion has built less than 50 percent of the
badly needed roads called for by the
plan over the past five years (Sotsialis-
ticheskaya industriya, 9 May 1981, p.
2). In six years, USSR Gosplan has not
drawn up a program for the develop-
ment of the TPK, and the problems
associated with conflict between the
Komi ASSR and Nenets A. O. admin-
istrations have not been resolved
(Khozyaystvo i pravo, April 1982, pp.
14-18).
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authority to assure ministerial compliance for deci-
sions related to matters within the TPK. Although it
appears that Gosplan has been given primary respon-
sibility for guiding the comprehensive development of
TPKs, there seems little question that the central
ministries will struggle to retain their economic deci-
sionmaking prerogatives and will not relinquish them
willingly to Gosplan. Thus the forthcoming statute
defining the legal basis of TPKs will play a critical
role in determining the success or failure of the TPK
policy.
Future Prospects
All these problems will be exacerbated by the current
squeeze on investment, so that in most TPKs only
limited development of the most essential facilities
will take place during the 1981-85 Plan period. There
simply will not be adequate resources available to
provide for the kind of comprehensive development
that might produce substantial savings in the long
run. The West Siberia TPK will be allocated the lion's
share of the increment to investment for the produc-
tion of oil and natural gas that is absolutely essential
to the Soviet economy. This TPK, however, is much
too large and its environment too harsh for diversified
development.
Several other energy-related TPKs also will undergo
limited development. The Kansk-Achinsk and Pavlo-
dar-Ekibastuz TPKs are expected to supply large
amounts of strip-mined coal and electric power from
coal-fired thermal plants to other regions of the
country to help ease the nation's energy problems. But
the successful exploitation of the energy resources of
these two TPKs will be hindered by the current lack
of a proven technology for efficiently transmitting
electricity over the long distances involved and by the
inability of the already overburdened rail system to
move the amounts of coal required if the transmission
problem cannot be solved. Development of coal re-
sources at the South Yakutia TPK will continue, but
its national importance results from its foreign ex-
change earnings potential rather than from its contri-
bution to national energy production except within the
Far East. Finally, the Timan-Pechora TPK will re-
ceive considerable attention because its oil and natu-
ral gas reserves, although small compared to those of
West Siberia, are located much closer to the main
centers of energy demand.
Truly diversified development will probably take
place only in the Sayan TPK, located in one of the
more environmentally benign areas of Asiatic Russia.
The region possesses good supplies of coal and other
minerals and has a relatively well-developed transpor-
tation network. The Soviets have already made a
substantial commitment to the region's development
beyond the basic industries-a hydroelectric power
plant and associated aluminum refinery-which de-
fine its core. A railroad car plant is under construction
at Abakan, and several plants of the Ministry of
Electrical Equipment are planned at Minusinsk.
Thus, Soviet leaders are probably faced with an
insolvable dilemma. We assume they perceive that a
TPK-centered regional development policy offers
many potential economic benefits, but their ability to
implement the policy is greatly circumscribed both by
powerful institutional interests and by major econom-
ic and geographic constraints. The July 1979 planning
decree and the creation of the two interdepartmental
commissions for West Siberia make clear that the
Soviets are trying to institute such a policy with
primary responsibility being assigned to Gosplan.
According to a Soviet regional economist, similar
commissions will be created for other TPKs in the
future. It is not clear, however, how these commis-
sions will relate to the new legal status to be created
for TPKs in accordance with the Draft Directives of
the 11th FYP.
Whatever its form, this new TPK authority will
require time to develop its operational capabilities.
Whether it will be successful, and to what degree, or
whether it will result only in another layer on the
bureaucracy, emasculated by powerful ministries and
economic forces beyond its control, is a question
whose answer will not be known for several years. The
history of the Soviet economic system, however,
strongly suggests that the TPK policy will not sub-
stantially improve the operation of the Soviet
economy.
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Appendix
Territorial Production Complexes
Cited in the
1981-85 Five-Year Plan
The natural resources and industrial core of the eight
TPKs in the 11th Five-Year Plan are described, and
the role of each in the Soviet economy is assessed.
When possible, the expected investment costs are
provided.
West Siberia TPK
The West Siberia TPK is vast, spread out over much
of Tyumen', Tomsk, and now perhaps part of Novosi-
birsk Oblasts. Its critical oil and gas resources are
located in its more remote northern regions, in areas
of harsh environment, limited transportation facilities,
sparse population, and virtually no social infrastruc-
ture other than a few small urban centers. This TPK
will develop an integrated and diversified industrial
structure only to a limited extent in the more hospita-
ble narrow southern zone along the Trans-Siberian
Railroad. It would be difficult, however, to overstate
the importance of this region to the Soviet economy.
It contains the critically important oil and gas re-
serves from which the Soviets will obtain an ever-
increasing proportion of their production. The cost of
obtaining these resources has been and will continue
to be enormous. Investment in the development of
West Siberian oil and natural gas was more than 25
billion rubles from 1976 to 1980 alone '6-nearly
4 percent of total USSR investment for the period.
The Soviets have had to resort to a variety of methods
to secure labor for the region, including bringing
crews in for short rotations from far outside the
region. In addition to extraction of oil and gas, the
Soviets are building major petrochemical plants at
Tomsk and Tobolsk. Surgut is being developed as the
main support center for the oil and gas fields; it was
linked by rail to the Trans-Siberian Railroad at
Tyumen' in 1973, and an extension to the gasfields at
Urengoy is nearly complete. A major electric power
plant using associated gas from Samotlar also has
been built there.
Timan-Pechora TPK
Located in the Komi ASSR in northern European
Russia, Timan-Pechora is one of two TPKs located
west of the Ural Mountains. In terms of environment,
population, and level of development, however, it
resembles the West Siberia TPK with which it shares
a common boundary. Like West Siberia, its develop-
ment is based on energy resources, including oil,
natural gas, and the Vorkuta coal reserves. About half
of the coal produced is suitable for coking. The
region's importance in oil and gas production has been
growing. During the 1976-80 Plan period, Komineft
(Komi Autonomous Republic Petroleum Association)
increased petroleum production by 50 percent (still
only slightly more than 3 percent of Soviet produc-
tion) and moved from 16th to fifth place in the
absolute volume of production." The volume of gas
production has also grown, although the region's
share of production has declined as West Siberia's has
expanded. The TPK has significant timber reserves;
an important forest products complex has developed
at Syktyvkar, which also serves as the main support
and supply center of the region. Exploitation of
potentially important titanium and bauxite deposits
remains in the planning stage. The value of the
resources of the Timan-Pechora TPK is increased
substantially by its proximity to the European part of
the USSR. A Russian Republic Commission for
Coordinating Questions Involving the Formation of
the Timan-Pechora Territorial-Production Complex
apparently existed at one time, but nothing is known
about its actual operation." Investment in the Timan-
Pechora TPK during the 11th FYP is expected to
exceed 7 billion rubles."
South Yakutia TPK
The South Yakutia TPK, the first and so far the only
TPK in the Baikul-Amur Mainline (BAM) zone, is
oriented toward the Pacific coast to which it has been
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linked via the Trans-Siberian Railroad. It is currently
being developed as part of a long-term compensation
agreement with the Japanese Government initiated in
1974, in which Japan agreed to provide the Soviet
Union with credits worth $450 million for purchase of
equipment and some consumer goods. In return it
received the right to purchase 104 million tons of
coking coal from 1983 to 1999. An additional $90
million in loans has been granted subsequently.20 Total
cost for development of the South Yakutia TPK has
been estimated by Western experts at $1.6 billion."
According to Soviet accounts, approximately 700
million rubles were spent on development in the TPK
from 1976 to 1980; an additional 1 billion rubles were
needed during the next two and a half years.22 Assimi-
lation of these funds has been very slow-only half of
the investment planned for 1979 was actually accom-
plished -and living conditions remain very poor. It
seems unlikely that production of coking coal from
Neryungri will meet the level required by 1983,
forcing the Soviets to rely on the Kuzrietsk coal basin
to meet their export obligations. Future development
will almost certainly include the large iron ore depos-
its near Aldan, and probably other nearby mineral
deposits, including mica. Much of the region's new
mineral production probably will be used, at least
initially, for export where it will be able to earn
valuable hard currency.
South Tajik TPK
The South Tajik TPK covers over one-third of the
territory of the Tajik Republic, includes the capital,
Dushanbe, and contains nearly two-thirds of the
republic's population. Its core is hydroelectric power
from the Vakhsh River. The Nurek hydroelectric
power plant with a capacity of 2.7 million kilowatts
has been completed, and construction has begun on
the Rogun power plant upstream, which will have an
even larger capacity of 3.6 million kilowatts. Con-
struction of the two large energy-intensive plants-an
aluminum plant at Tursunzade and an electrochemi-
cal plant at Yavan based on locally mined minerals-
has been extremely slow (over 15 years so far).
Although parts of the plants are in operation, they are
still far from complete.
The reason for the sluggish development, according to
a Tajik SSR Gosplan official, is the failure of the
responsible central ministries to allocate sufficient
funds.23 Furthermore, the funds that have been pro-
vided have gone to industrial construction; housing
and other infrastructure development lag far behind
current requirements. The slow pace of industrial
development has left the region with substantial ex-
cess electric power capacity. The dams are also
expected to stimulate agriculture, especially cotton
production, by providing water for irrigation. Al-
though this TPK is located in Central Asia where the
population is growing rapidly, labor shortages have
been common because most of the local labor force is
not adequately trained for the types of jobs being
created. In addition, there have been complaints that
not enough attention is being paid to expansion of the
more labor-intensive industries, such as textiles, which
are already established in the region and could absorb
some of this unemployed or underemployed labor
force.
Kansk-Achinsk TPK
The Kansk-Achinsk TPK or KATEK (Kansk Achinsk
Fuel and Power Complex) is based on the develop-
ment of massive deposits of relatively low-grade coal
spread out over 60,000 square kilometers along 800
kilometers of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in East
Siberia. Most of the coal lies in thick horizontal seams
suitable for strip mining. Party and government de-
crees for the development of KATEK were issued in
March 1979, but the region will begin to make a
significant contribution to Soviet energy production
only after 1990. Annual production from old mines
undergoing reconstruction and new mines being
opened was about 35 million tons in 1980. Output will
approach 50 million tons by 1985, with final produc-
tion capacity expected to reach seven to eight times
that amount. The first of from eight to 10 large (6,400
megawatts), mine-mouth, thermal electric power
plants projected fo: the coal basin is slowly being
built. The projected cost for development of the
Kansk-Achinsk TPK was estimated at 5 to 6 billion
rubles for industrial construction and an additional
1.2 billion rubles in municipal construction.24
The potential for KATEK coals to contribute directly
to satisfying energy demand by consumers in the
western USSR is sharply limited by an inability to
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withstand long-distance hauls without preliminary
processing. The coals have a high moisture content,
are friable, and are given to spontaneous combustion.
In addition, the technology for the planned direct
current, high voltage, 1,500 kilovolt long-distance
transmission lines to carry electricity westward is still
undeveloped. Moreover, the railroad system could not
handle the greatly increased volume of freight re-
quired should the technology for transmission not be
available. For the foreseeable future, therefore,
KATEK energy production will be used mainly in
Siberia. Another possible use of KATEK coals that is
being given support is the production of synthetic
liquid fuels, but the conversion technology required
remains uncertain." The major industrial center of
this TPK is Krasnoyarsk, a city of over 1 million
inhabitants with a large established industrial base.
The only major new manufacturing facility currently
planned for the Kansk-Achinsk TPK, a plant to
manufacture the large shovels and excavators needed
for strip-mining operations in KATEK, is located
there.
Pavlodar-Ekibastuz TPK
The key element in the Pavlodar-Ekibastuz TPK is
the Ekibastuz Fuel and Power Complex (ETEK). Its
development and high-priority status were confirmed
in a joint CPSU Central Committee-USSR Council
of Ministers Decree in 1977. Development of ETEK is
based on large deposits of low-quality bituminous
coals with a relatively low caloric value and high ash
content. Reserves are estimated at over 7 billion tons,
and much of the coal is suitable for strip mining. The
Bogatyr' strip mine is the complex's star with produc-
tion now approaching 50 million tons per year from a
base of 100,000 tons in 1970. Coal extraction costs in
this mine are just over one ruble per ton-less than
one-third of the cost of other open-pit mines.26 The
entire complex now produces about 70 million tons
and is scheduled to reach 84 million tons by 1985. It is
projected to have a final capacity of more than 150
million tons.
The Soviets plan to use this capacity to generate a
significant proportion of their electricity require-
ments. As of 1981, Ekibastuz coal fueled 20 power
stations in the Urals, Siberia, and Kazakhstan with a
total capacity of over 12 million kW.27 The overall
planned capacity of power stations using ETEK coal
is 36 to 38 million kW. Most of the increased capacity
will come from four 4-million-kW power plants to be
built near Ekibastuz using the same basic designs.
Construction of the first of these plants is in progress
while construction of the second is just beginning.
Ekibastuz coals cannot stand the cost of transporta-
tion beyond the Urals because of their high ash
content, and, even if they could, the increased burden
would probably be too great for the already strained
railroads. The Soviets, therefore, plan to feed electric-
ity to the power grids of the European USSR and
especially to the Ural industrial zone through a
system of long-distance, high-tension transmission
lines. The centerpiece of this scheme is a 1,500
kilovolt (kV) direct current line. As noted earlier for
Kansk-Achinsk, the technology for this type of line
has not been developed. The Soviets are much further
along in the development of technology for a 1,150 kV
alternating current line that also is to be built.
The Pavlodar-Ekibastuz TPK has been under devel-
opment since the early 1970s. About 2 billion rubles
were invested between 1971 and 1975,28 and total
investment during the 20 to 25 years the Soviets
project it will take to develop ETEK completely is
pegged at 7.6 to 8.0 billion rubles, or three-fourths of
the estimated cost of the BAM railroad.29 Interesting-
ly, one of the major problems experienced at the TPK
is the inability to absorb efficiently all the available
investment because of insufficient construction per-
sonnel and equipment.30 Other important construction
projects at the TPK are the Pavlodar Alumina Plant,
the Yermak Ferroalloy Plant, and expansion of the
Pavlodar Tractor Plant. In addition, the railroad lines
serving the area and associated facilities are being
improved.
Kursk Magnetic Anomaly TPK
The Kursk Magnetic Anomaly TPK is one of two
located in the European USSR and the only one
included in the 11th FYP that is not related to the
development of energy resources. Its name refers to
the major iron ore deposit that forms its basis.
Reserves in the zone between the cities of Belgorod
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and Kursk that define its heart are estimated at over
43 billion tons." About 60 percent of the reserves are
rich ore (56 to 66 percent iron content) while the
remaining but more accessible 40 percent are relative-
ly low-grade quartzites (35 to 37 percent iron content)
that require beneficiation. Creation of the KMA TPK
was called for in the Ninth FYP, and with that
decision, iron ore output began to grow dramatically.
Production grew from 17.6 million tons in 1970 to 37
million tons in 1977. Output reached about 39 million
tons in 1980 or about 16 percent of total USSR iron
ore production. This growth catapulted the KMA into
second place behind only the Ukraine's Krivoy Rog
Basin. About 30 percent of the ore produced is
shipped to iron and steel plants in the Urals, a similar
amount to the iron and steel plant at nearby Lipetsk,
and lesser amounts to plants at Tula and Cherepovets.
Ore from the KMA is also shipped to the Katowice
plant in Poland.32
The increase in production has come from the con-
struction and expansion of open-pit mines and concen-
trators at deposits in the Gubkin-Staryy Oskol and
Zheleznogorsk districts. The Soviets originally hoped
to build a conventional 8-12 million ton integrated
iron and steel plant at the KMA with the participa-
tion of CEMA countries. This idea has been dropped,
and the main industrial project of the KMA TPK now
is construction of a direct conversion electric steel
plant being built by a West German consortium
headed by Krupp at Staryy Oskol. The plant will have
an initial annual steelmaking capacity of about 2
million metric tons, with further expansion to over 4
million tons planned. The ongoing industrial develop-
ment in the region will create a heavy burden on local
water resources. These are to be augmented by the
planned construction of a 300 kilometer Oka-Don-
Oskol Canal. Much of the electricity for the plant is
to be supplied by a nuclear power plant at Kursk.33
entire region has been the focus of a major Soviet
development effort begun during the 1970s, which
will continue during the 1980s.
At the core of the TPK is the partially completed
Sayan hydroelectric power station that will have a
final capacity of 6.4 million kW. The principal indus-
trial consumer of the power from this station will be
an aluminum plant being built nearby at the new
town of Sayanogorsk. The plant will be built by
Klockner of West Germany under a compensation
agreement worth $310 million, which was signed after
Alcoa withdrew because of US sanctions related to
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan." The other major
developments planned for the TPK are a large rail-
road car plant at Abakan and an industrial park of
about a dozen plants of the electrical equipment
industry that are to be colocated on a single site in
Minusinsk.33
The Krasnoyarsk Kray Executive Committee and
Kray Gosplan apparently have taken an unusually
active role in planning the development of the Sayan
TPK as well as other areas of the Kray.36 As part of
the effort to improve coordination. among responsible
ministries involved in developing the Sayan TPK, an
Interdepartmental Commission for the Distribution of
Productive Forces was organized under the Kray
Executive Committee. In addition the Kray Gosplan
has had its responsibilities for short- and long-term
planning enlarged. Of course, these regional organiza-
tions still possess little real authority over the more
powerful central ministries. Their role in the develop-
ment of the Sayan TPK apparently is largely adviso-
ry. Nonetheless, it is possible that other oblast-level
governments may try to emulate these organizational
structures, especially if Krasnoyarsk begins to enjoy
success with them.
Sayan TPK
Creation of the Sayan TPK was initially called for in
the Ninth FYP (1971-75). This TPK is located at the
southern tip of Krasnoyarsk Kray in East Siberia,
along the Yenesey River just south of the major
industrial city of Krasnoyarsk and the coal-based
Kansk-Achinsk TPK. Because of the proximity of
these two TPKs and the relatively well-developed
transportation network linking them together, the
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Brezhnev's statement on regional inequality appeared in Pravda,
22 December 1972, p. 5. For a review of studies of regional
inequality in the Soviet Union, see Roland J. Fuchs and George J.
Demko, "Geographic Inequality Under Socialism," Annals of the
Association of American Geographers, 69 (June 1979), pp. 304-318.
2 See "The Soviet Economy on a Treadmill of Reforms," Joint
Economic Committee on the Soviet Economy in a Time Change
I (Washington D C_ 1979)_ on. 312-340
An extensive bibliography of the vast Soviet literature on TPKs is
contained in A. Kibal'chich and M. N. Stepanov, "Problems in the
Economic Regionalization of the USSR and the Formation of
Territorial Production Complexes," Itogi naukii tekhniki, Seriya
Geograftya SSSR, 15 (Moscow 1979), pp. 66-99. For Western
reviews of the TPK concept, see Richard E. Lonsdale, "The Soviet
Concept of the Territorial-Production Complex," Slavic Review,
24 (September 1965), pp. 466-478; G. J. R. Linge, Gerald J.
Karaska, and F. E. Ian Hamilton, "An Appraisal of the Soviet
Concept of the Territorial Production Complex," Soviet Geogra-
phy: Review and Translation, 19 (December 1978), pp. 681-695.
For a review of the relationship between TPKs and Western
theories of geographically focused development, see George A.
Huzinec, "Some Initial Comparisons of Soviet and Western Re-
gional Development Models," Soviet Geography: Review and
Translation, 17 (October 1976), pp. 552-65. Alternatively, for a
Soviet view of the relevancy of such Western theories to the Soviet
Union, see A. L. Belov, "Polarized Regional Development: Theoret-
ical Aspects," Soviet Geography: Review and Translation, 31
(November, 1980), pp. 599-603.
TPKs have been strongly endorsed in articles and editorials in
Planovoye khozyaystvo, the Gosplan journal, by the Council for the
Study of Productive Forces (SOPS) under N. N. Nekrasov within
USSR Gosplan, and in speeches by officials of both USSR and
republican Gosplans.
The dropping of a TPK from the national plan does not mean that
development at the project will stop. On the contrary, some dropped
projects have been listed as priority projects in the five-year plans of
their own republics. Thus, the Karatau-Dzhambul, Mangyshlak,
and Pavlodar-Ekibastuz projects are included as TPKs in the FYP
for the Kazakh SSR, even though only the last one is accorded TPK
status in the national guidelines. Nonetheless, it seems reasonable
that within the hierarchy of development projects, a TPK men-
tioned in the authoritative guidelines for the USSR FYP would
have a higher priority, that is, a stronger claim to scarce resources,
than one only included at the republic level.
` These plans are to be drawn up for the life of the project and are
supposed to include (1) justification for the project, (2) a list of
sectoral and regional participants included in the plan and an
appropriate administrative structure to implement it, (3) a descrip-
tion of the related production and social infrastructure to be
developed, (4) a timetable for the project, and (5) estimates of the
amounts of different resources required.
' Very little is currently known about the Council of Ministers'
Commission. The commission met, probably for the first time, in
Tyumen' Oblast from 25 to 27 March 1981, to acquaint itself with
the situation in the region and to map out its program. The head of
the commission is V. Dymshits, deputy chairman of the USSR
Council of Ministers, who has a long history of involvement in
energy-related matters. See Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, No. 14
(April 1981), p. 6. The first secretary of the Komi ASSR Obkom
has called for a similar set of commissions to be established for the
Timan-Pechora TPK located in his ASSR. See I. Morozov, Kho-
zyaystvo i pravo (April 1982), pp. 14-18.
' Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, No. 3, January 1982, p. 15; Pravda
3 March 1982; and Sotsialisticheskaya industriya, 19 June 1981,
p. 1.
' Planovoye khozyaystvo, May 1982, pp. 114-120.
"A. Kochetkov, Pravda, 24 February 1981.
" A. Aganbegyan, Zhurnalist, No. 7 (July 1978), pp. 12-15.
" A. Ye. Probst, "Territorial Production Complexes," Soviet Geog-
raphy: Review and Translation, 28 (March 1977), pp. 195-203.
" Izvestiya, 20 June 1980, p. 2.
Trud, 27 July 1980, p. 2.
L. G. Sizov, Ugol, June 1978, pp. 9-12.
6 A. Aganbegyan, Liturnaya gazeta, 7 November 1979, p. 11.
" Pravda, 1 September 1980, p. 2.
? Pravda, 1 April 1977, p. 3.
I. Morozov, Sotsialisticheskaya industriya, 9 May 1981, p. 2.
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20 Richard L. Edmonds, Siberian Resource Development and the
Japanese Economy: The Japanese Perspective, Discussion Paper
No. 12, Association of American Geographers Project on Soviet
Natural Resources in the World Economy, Washington, D. C.,
August 1979, pp. 9-10.
21 Mining Journal, 21 September 1979, p. 244.
22 Trud, 27 July 1980, p. 2.
23 Ye. Akimov, Stroitel' naya gazeta, 10 January 1979, p. 2.
Ugol', January 1978,'pp. 9-12.
26 A. Sheyndlin and I. Kalechits, Izvestiya, 24 April 1981, p. 2.
26 Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, No. 23, June 1980, p. 1.
2' Kazakhstanskaya pravda, 7 October 81, p. 1.
29 Partiynaya zhizn, February 1979, pp. 36-42.
" The Abakan Railroad Car Plant is a classic case of the kind of
problems that afflict TPK development. The decision to build the
plant, which has a planned capacity of 40,000 cars per year, was
made in 1968, before creation of the Sayan TPK formally began.
Work on this all-union construction project began in 1970 with
completion expected in 1976. But work on the project practically
ceased. The Ministry of Heavy Machine Building cut planned
capital investment to the project in response to Gosplan's demand to
begin construction on a higher priority project, a large shipping
container manufacturing plant at the same site. In 1975, the
railroad car project was allocated only 12 million of the 80 million
rubles of planned investment. Yet even after the container plant
was finished, the railroad car plant did not benefit because the
construction trust was diverted to work on the Krasnoyarsk excava-
tor plant. Although much of the support base and the exterior
building construction of the railroad car plant now have been
completed, much work remains to be done before it reaches full
capacity. See Pravda, 12 December 1980, p. 3.
29 Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, 1 I April 1980, p. 2; Izvestiya, 20 June p. 10.
1980, p. 2.
31 The entire KMA deposit stretches 850 kilometers between Smo-
lensk and Rostov. In combination with other smaller deposits in the
center region it contains about 42 percent of Soviet iron ore
reserves. Paul Lydolph notes, however, "Most of this great reserve
of ore lies deep beneath the surface and under thick water-bearing
rocks which make exploitation difficult... [and] explains why the
KMA ore has not been exploited to any extent previously." Paul E.
Lydolph, Geography of the USSR, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin: Misty
Valley Publishing, 1979, p. 309.
32 Theodore Shabad, "News Notes," Soviet Geography: Review and
Translation, 21 (April 1980), p. 254.
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