SOVIET SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY: AN EMERGING LEADERSHIP STRATEGY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00591R000200290003-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 65
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 11, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 1, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of
Intelligence
Leadership Strategy
Soviet Science and Technology
Policy: An Emerging
copy 400
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Directorate of Top Secret
Intelligence 25X1
Leadership Strategy
Policy: An Emerging
Soviet Science and Technology
This paper was prepared by
Soviet Analysis, with contri
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Office of Scientific and Weapons Research.
Comments and queries are welcome and may be
directed to the Chief, National Issues Group
Top Secret
SOV 85-10111 CX
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Summary
Information available
as of 15 June 1985
was used in this report.
Soviet Science and Technology
Policy: An Emergin
Leadership Strategy
the development of indigenous capabilities in science and innovation.
International and domestic pressures are forcing the Soviet Union to
concentrate on accelerating technological change. The leadership recog-
nizes that the USSR is increasingly lagging the West in meeting the
challenge of the new industrial revolution-known in some Moscow circles
as bionics, microcomputers, and robotics-and is concerned that the
inability to move emerging critical technologies quickly into production is a
major brake on development in both the defense and civilian industries. As
a result, the future economic base of Soviet military power is weakened.
The Soviets are also apprehensive about possible US technological break-
throughs that could upset the strategic military balance. No less important,
Moscow is worried that technological dependence on the West not only
makes the USSR and the Soviet Bloc vulnerable to Western political
pressures and economic sanctions but also retards, in important respects,
focus national attention on problems of accelerating S&T progress.
In response, the leadership is moving to make science and technology
(S&T) policy the linchpin of its economic strategy. The Politburo apparent-
ly believes that more rapid advance and diffusion of S&T is the key to
modernizing the economy, raising productivity, and accelerating economic
growth. Development of S&T, in the leadership's view, would thus make
more fundamental economic reforms, such as greater use of market forces,
unnecessary. While this effort began under Brezhnev, Gorbachev has given
it new impetus, using a special Central Committee conference-in June to
The leadership's model for speeding technological advance is not the
capitalist or the socialist market economy but rather its own military
economy in which centralized program planning, organization, and man-
agement, as well as strong party direction, are the norms. Measures the
leadership is taking to apply this model to the civilian economy include:
? Improving the effectiveness of bureaucratic levers-the party's sponsor-
ship and oversight of new technology development, and strong centralized
management-that have been generally weak in the civilian sphere but
are crucial to military technology and defense modernization.
? Creating big, goal-oriented projects to accelerate the development of key
technologies (lasers, robotics, biotechnology). In January 1984, for exam-
ple, the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences called for a
comprehensive program to advance development and use of computers in
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SOV 85-10111 CX
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Top Secret
industry, science, and education, and he cited the USSR's nuclear and
missile programs as models for such a national effort. In early January
1985, the Politburo approved such a computerization program extending
to the year 2000.
? Placing people with experience in managing high technology in key
positions in the party apparatus by promoting industrial technocrats,
such as party secretary and Politburo member Nikolay Ryzhkov, and by
transferring top defense industrial executives to critical civilian jobs.
Some of the tactics involved in this approach, like closer central party
supervision and goal-oriented programs, probably are also viewed by the
Soviets as capitalizing on the intrinsic advantages of a centrally planned
economy.
In addition to making better use of techniques applied in the defense
sector, the leadership has directed that:
? The development of a 20-Year Comprehensive Program for S&T Pro-
gress be updated every five years to help guide the setting of national pri-
orities and drive the system of annual and five-year plans toward solving
major, long-term economic and social problems.
? The focus and organization of the State Planning Committee (Gosplan),
the State Committee for Science and Technology (GKNT), and the
USSR Academy of Sciences be changed to improve S&T policy planning
and coordination and to promote the application of research to critical
national needs.
? The system of management incentives and sanctions be changed to spur
development and use of new technology and to phase out obsolete
technology in both the civilian and military sectors of the economy.
These measures, which have evolved particularly over the last five years,
suggest a strong commitment to technological modernization of the
economy that could, if implemented, rank in scope with the reorganization
of defense industries in the early 1960s and possibly even with the
industrialization campaign of the 1930s. Indeed, Mikhail Gorbachev, at an
ideology conference in December 1984, emphasized that this task "must be
made truly national in nature and given the same political ring as
industrialization of the country had in its time."
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The multiple paths that the Soviets are pursuing to hasten S&T advance-
ment in the civilian sector have evolved gradually. Increasingly, these
efforts have gained momentum and taken on the characteristics of a long-
range and broad-gauged strategy for overcoming the USSR's technological
backwardness. Gorbachev, also in his December speech, used the term
"strategy of S&T progress" to describe Moscow's evolving economic policy
moves. So far, however, the regime has taken only the first steps toward
implementing its declared policy. We expect more vigorous implementation
of most of these measures in the civil sector in the 1986-90 plan period, and
it will stretch into the mid-1990s. Whether the leadership can muster-and
sustain-the investment and political clout that are really needed to ensure
implementation is uncertain, however.
The increased domestic development of S&T is designed in part to lessen
the Soviets' dependence on the West for high technology. At the same
time, however, their efforts to buy, borrow, and steal Western technology
are being intensified and are likely to continue at least through the 1990s.
Even beyond the year 2000, Moscow will probably want Western technol-
ogy to save time in development, avoid research and development (R&D)
costs, and hedge against failure. Nonetheless, economic realities-hard
currency constraints and problems in assimilating foreign technology-will
constrain any steep rise in trade and the acquisition of foreign technology
to boost Moscow's modernization program over the next several years.
If the party's new S&T policy is to succeed, strong leadership from the top,
increased party involvement, better use of both administrative measures
and monetary incentives, and, above all, a substantial increase in resources
and investment will be required. Real progress will hinge particularly on
several key issues:
? Gorbachev's success in consolidating his position-and his willingness to
use his power to overcome entrenched institutional opposition to new
ways of economic management and new priorities.
? Implementation of changes in planning, organization, management, and
incentives that would give innovation in the civilian sector the high
priority that it already enjoys in the defense industries. Without reform
of the basic workings of the civilian production sector, ongoing leadership
efforts to reorganize S&T policy agencies and R&D institutions will be
insufficient to meet the new S&T goals.
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? Reorienting resource allocation policy in the 1986-90 Five-Year Plan to
secure sufficient investment to follow through on the stated goal of
modernizing and retooling the economy.
? Acceleration of personnel turnover, begun in 1983 under Andropov (but
slowed under Chernenko), and personnel assignments based on techno-
cratic expertise, rather than political credentials. The promotion of more
competent managers and technocrats to leadership positions at all levels
is essential to ensure implementation of current S&T policy initiatives.
Gorbachev will probably look in particular to party organizations in 22
cities where 80 percent of S&T is concentrated as areas in which to make
new appointments as well as from which to recruit personnel for Moscow.
? Refashioning of the party apparatus-its organizational structure, per-
sonnel expertise, and attitudes-making it a force for technological
change, rather than an obstacle. Implementation of such institutional
changes could be pushed through only by a General Secretary who is
firmly committed both to faster technological progress and to an
expanded role for the party in modernizing the economy.
Gorbachev's initial moves suggest that some of these "necessary" condi-
tions for implementing an ambitious S&T policy probably will be met. He
has moved rapidly to consolidate his position and has shown that personnel
policy is a top priority item. His verbal commitment to S&T modernization
and convening of a conference on this subject have probably sent strong
signals throughout the political system that he intends to move forcefully
on this issue and that opposition would not be wise. Nonetheless, formida-
ble obstacles exist that will block easy or rapid technological change.
Altering resource allocation policy to support faster S&T progress will be
difficult. A major drive to modernize the economy's antiquated stock of
plant and machinery would require increased investment at a time when
the squeeze on resources is particularly tight. During the 1986-90 period,
the Soviet leadership will face a far more delicate balancing act in resource
allocation than before because:
? Pressure will come from all three resource claimants-defense, invest-
ment, and consumption-for increased allocations, but, unlike recent
plan periods, the demands of one or another claimant probably cannot be
safely deferred.
? Soviet economic growth will probably continue at a rate of 1.5 to 2.5 per-
cent per year through the end of the decade.
A substantial increase in investment at the expense of defense or consump-
tion, and possibly both, is unlikely.
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It is also unlikely that the Politburo's attempt to engineer a nationwide
high-tech revolution and industrial revitalization by decree will achieve its
objectives. In the past, the leadership's direct intervention has been an
important spur to technological innovation and development, especially in
the defense sector. But today's economy is much more complex, and the
leadership's political capacity to intervene directly to solve problems is
necessarily limited.
More specifically, priorities by definition must be limited. Increasing the
number of civilian priority programs, for example, might undermine the
effectiveness of the USSR's military programs by diverting resources and
personnel. The planning and management approach of the defense sector,
moreover, cannot be transplanted easily to the civilian side, and it will not
work there with equal success. The institutional environments are different,
and formal application of military R&D techniques is not likely to be
sufficient. To assure that decisions prevail and programs are implemented,
civilian managers must institutionalize defense industry methods in their
attitudes and working relationships. Some of these measures to accelerate
progress in S&T constitute a challenge to long-established attitudes and
institutional interests, will tax the capabilities of key elite groups, have
already sparked political controversy, and could lead to a revision or
reversal of the present course.
Even with Gorbachev's complete support, and assuming that initial
bureaucratic and institutional barriers can be overcome, the ultimate
success of this approach to modernization is not assured. Its key aspects re-
flect the political and ideological biases in the existing economic system,
and its momentum stems partly from the establishment's desire to avoid
the fundamental systemic changes that may be required for the S&T policy
to succeed. Ironically, however, the objectives of this effort and many of
the measures adopted actually may increase pressure for a more radical
economic reform, such as freeing prices and basing incentives on profits,
that have been considered anathema by the party's moguls. It is too early
to know whether Gorbachev, during his probably long tenure in office, will
address these even more controversial issues. His speeches to date,
nonetheless, indicate that he puts a high priority on the S&T policy's stated
objective of accelerating economic growth and that he intends to push hard
in this area-factors that may lead him to adopt bolder measures if he be-
comes convinced that a less radical approach will not get the job done.
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Introduction
Increasing Emphasis on Long-Term Planning
Planning Decrees
Debate Over S&T Progress Program Update
Priority Programs
Raising Priority for S&T Programs
Military Involvement
Reorganizing the S&T Policy Establishment
Gosplan
GKNT
USSR Academy of Sciences
New Emphasis on Applied Research
Expanded Role in Computer Technology
Making Computers a Tool of Science
The Active Role of Regional Science Centers
Combined Meetings or Science Summits
Interbranch Organizations
Strengthening Incentives and Sanctions for Innovation
Better Rewards for New Technology
Stiffer Penalties for Obsolete Technology
Greater Managerial Autonomy
Organizational Changes
Central Party Apparatus
Republic Party Organizations
Regional Party Committees
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Building a Cadres Policy To Support Technological Advances
Implications for the Soviet System
Leadership Politics
Military and Civilian Industrial Interaction
Remaking the Government and Party Elites
The Party's Role in Managing the Economy
Foreign Trade and Technology Transfer
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Pressures and Prospects for Change
35
38
39
40
41
A. Science and Technology Target Programs in the 1981-85 Five- 45
Year Plan
B. The Soviet Defense Industrial Sector:
Keys to Its Technological Success
C. Excerpts From General Secretary Gorbachev's
Report to the June 1985 CPSU Conference
on S&T Progress
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Soviet Science and Technology
Policy: An Emerging
Leadership Strategy
Moscow's hopes for spurring economic growth hinge
critically on the ability to switch to a new develop-
ment strategy. A change from extensive growth,
which is based largely on massive injections of labor
and capital, to intensive growth, which is achieved
primarily through increased productivity, has been
the declared but elusive objective since the mid-1970s.
While some steps have been taken toward this goal,
Soviet leaders acknowledge that improvements in
total factor productivity are not adequate. The leader-
ship's ability to achieve an effective breakthrough in
increasing overall productivity of labor, plant, and
equipment is uncertain. Some of the obstacles appear
endemic to an economic system that has fostered
long-established work habits of casual discipline, slack
effort, shoddy workmanship, and waste. Among man-
agers there is a deeply ingrained drive to meet
quantitative output goals-regardless of cost, quality,
and other efficiency criteria-and an unwillingness to
innovate or take risks because of a perverse system of
incentives that discriminates against change
The Soviets have tried to improve productivity mostly
through improvements to the existing economic sys-
tem and management structure-improvements that
follow a well-worn and narrow path of reform. De-
spite a veritable treadmill of reform decrees, continu-
ing debates, and more experiments, however, the
leadership's efforts have not markedly reversed the
downward drift in productivity and growth. The lead-
ership has been unwilling to bring about a major
modification of the traditional command economy
and take significant steps toward a socialist market
economy, given the challenge to political control and
vast uncertainties that would inevitably flow from
such a revolutionary move. In the face of the enor-
mous political, ideological, and economic constraints
against even partial marketization, this conservative
approach to economic reform seems unlikely to lead to
a substantial change in how the economy operates.
An additional constraint is the economy's antiquated
stock-buildings, machinery, and equipment-which
provides a weak foundation for boosting productivity
growth and the spread of new technology. Since the
mid-1970s, the Soviet leadership has tried to redirect
investment policy away from new construction to
stress renovation and modernization of existing indus-
trial facilities. These efforts have not been successful,
however. The overall rate of retiring old and obsolete
capital stock-always low compared with that of
Western countries-has steadily slowed. According to
Soviet data, 30 to 40 percent of all equipment now in
operation in the USSR has been in use for 15 to 20
years or more, and fewer new machines have been
introduced in the 1981-85 period than during 1976-
80.
A major effort now to increase investment in machine
building would run head-on into the conflicting de-
mands of other resource claimants. During the 1986-
90 period, the Soviet leadership will face pressure
from all three major claimants-defense, investment,
and consumption-for increased allocations. More-
over, prospects for a continuing slow rate of economic
growth during the remainder of the decade-1.5 to
2.5 percent per year-will further constrain resource
allocations.
At the same time, the Soviets have taken other
initiatives that focus on integrating policies on science
and technology (S&T) with economic policy. These
initiatives, heavily dependent on centrally imposed
changes, constitute an alternative approach to eco-
nomic decentralization and modernization. Central to
this course of action is Moscow's belief that faster
technical progress is the key to achieving growth
through a major improvement in the productivity of
the economy. The Soviets did not initially view these
measures as a coherent program or strategy, nor have
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they generally labeled them as such. But they have
increasingly taken on the character of a long-term,
encompassing strategy that appears to be gaining
momentum and commitment from the leadership for
the 1986-90 Five-Year Plan.
Soviet leaders began to lay the groundwork for this
course in the early and mid-1970s-particularly in
the defense industries. By the late 1970s, several signs
appeared that indicated not only increasing priority
for applied science but also the growing involvement
of the defense sector in development of civilian tech-
nology. The leadership showed its heightened concern
by instituting:
? New S& T commissions. In March 1979, standing
commissions on science and technology were created
in both chambers of the USSR Supreme Soviet.
Prominent academicians, weapon designers, and
military leaders, including the Chief of the Strategic
Rocket Forces, serve as commission members. Since
1984 the head of the party's Department for De-
fense Industries also has been a member.
? Establishment of Science Day. In April 1979, Sovi-
et leaders proclaimed, for the first time, an official
day devoted to science. The celebration of Science
Day is another acknowledgment of official efforts to
mobilize the scientific and engineering community,
and also public opinion, behind national objectives.
? New S& T prizes. A new set of S&T prizes, awarded
annually on Science Day, was instituted in August
1980 for the development of new technology of
direct benefit to the economy, and particularly for
work performed under national S&T programs.
Defense scientists, engineers, and industrial manag-
ers have figured among the public nominees and
winners of these prizes.
Undergirding Moscow's intensified S&T efforts is
"innovation by order," the leadership's direct inter-
vention to spur technological change. This approach
had focused primarily on the defense sector. Now
efforts are being made to apply planning and manage-
ment features of the military-industrial complex,
which were used to advance weapons and space
technology, to the more backward civilian economy.
These include:
? High priority for and political sponsorship introduc-
ing new technology.
? Strong centralized management of development
programs.
? Close Communist Party oversight of the research
and development (R&D) and production process.
More specifically, the Soviets are adopting the follow-
ing S&T policy directions to address the central issues
of economic growth:
? Improving long-range planning of science, technol-
ogy, and the economy with greater emphasis on the
use of R&D results in production and in moderniza-
tion of both civilian and defense industries.'
? Fashioning major development programs for priori-
ty S&T problems and integrating them into eco-
nomic plans.
? Reorganizing the State Planning Committee
(Gosplan), the State Committee for Science and
Technology (GKNT), and the Academy of Sciences
and strengthening their roles in S&T policy plan-
ning and coordination.
? Restructuring the network of R&D institutions to
improve the experimental base of science, the cou-
pling of research with production, and the interac-
tion between civilian and defense sectors in key
areas of applied science and engineering.
? Strengthening both the incentives for innovation
and the penalties for failure to innovate among
scientists, engineers, and managers.
' Central to the campaign for modernization is the faster retirement
of obsolete plant and equipment and its replacement with more
efficient production facilities embodying advanced technology. Em-
phasis on retooling and reequipping industry will result in a large
share of total investment being dedicated to machinery and equip-
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? Expanding the party's involvement in directing S&T
efforts, accelerating innovation and modernizing the
economy, and monitoring priority S&T programs.
? Revising personnel policy to promote to key govern-
ment and party positions people who have technical
expertise and managerial experience with a strong
track record of innovation.
These policy directions cut across various sectors and
institutions; focus on political, economic, social, scien-
tific, and technical factors; and affect domestic and
foreign policies alike. Recent efforts to implement
most of them are a continuation or intensification of
earlier policy, which has often only partially and
haltingly been carried out. For the most part, they
seem to be still largely "posturing" and "pre-
positioning" steps, which have had only limited results
to date. If they continue to gain momentum, however,
these policy initiatives-as well as other actions the
leadership might take to orchestrate S&T develop-
ment-could have an impact on the basic workings of
the economy, institutional relations, and shape of the
future ruling elite.
The Soviet leadership has for some time recognized
that a long-range S&T program could serve as a
powerful lever for modernizing the economy. Soviet
leaders have pressed development of a long-term
program to overcome deficiencies in planning that
have long hampered their efforts to address effectively
the country's economic and social ills. General Secre-
tary Brezhnev first called for the Comprehensive
Program for S&T Progress and a matching economic
plan at the 1971 CPSU congress. Again, at the 1976
congress, he emphasized that without such a program
it was impossible to manage the economy success-
fully.'
2 For some time, long-range S&T forecasting and planning have
been important management tools in the Soviet military-industrial
complex. In contrast with the civilian economy, however, the
defense industry has the advantage of a well-defined customer/con-
sumer and a framework of desired capabilities and requirements in
which to evaluate the merits of alternative lines of S&T develop-
It is also evident from leadership statements that the
Politburo hopes the Comprehensive Program for S&T
Progress overcomes the traditional preoccupation in
Soviet economic management with short-term plan-
ning, which tends to drive out long-range plans, and
the traditionally conservative bias toward current
production, which discriminates against new technol-
ogy and favors established products and processes.
Specifically, the Program is a vehicle to orient, inte-
grate, and drive the annual and five-year plans more
effectively toward providing a strong impetus for
accelerating economic growth. At the 1976 party
congress, Brezhnev acknowledged that the Program's
guidelines "certainly cannot and should not be as
binding and as detailed as five-year plans." He ex-
plained further:
Their purpose is different, namely, to determine
ahead of time the nature and scale of the tasks
confronting us and to concentrate our forces on
solving them, to see more clearly formulation and
implementation of programs and projects extend-
ing beyond a five-year period.
Former Politburo member and Senior Economic Sec-
retary Andrey Kirilenko gave a similar description in
an August 1981 Kommunist article on Soviet S&T
policy:
It is the task of the Comprehensive Program to
identify trends in economic and social develop-
ment, the origin of new requirements, and the
capabilities of science and technology in solving
new problems, as well as to coordinate the efforts
of all links of science and production in imple-
menting fixed goals.
Initial efforts to prepare the Comprehensive Program
for S&T Progress for the 1976-90 period, neverthe-
less, became bogged down in bureaucratic politics,
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particularly bickering between the Academy of Sci-
ences and Gosplan over methodology. Moreover, al-
though the Academy and GKNT had by the summer
of 1978 jointly drawn up an initial draft of the
Comprehensive Program, Gosplan still had not pro-
duced its promised matching but separate 15-year
Gosplan's failure to produce its own 15-year plan
probably reflected its own lack of trainin for the
effort.
economic plan.
Planning Decrees
Gosplan's failure to develop its own long-range plan
held up completion of the Comprehensive Program for
S&T Progress drafted by the scientists and reportedly
angered Brezhnev. More important, that failure
seems to have been a key factor behind his renewed
drive to reorganize Gosplan, and it may have trig-
gered the Politburo's August 1978 special decree on
"strengthening" Gosplan, which Brezhnev mentioned
at the November 1978 Central Committee plenum.
During conversations with Gosplan officials in De-
cember 1978, US economists detected increased Sovi-
et interest in "scientific forecasting" and "technology
assessment." Beginning in February 1979, according
to Soviet published sources, Gosplan departments,
even without a draft of its own long-range plan, began
to participate actively, for the first time, with various
Academy and GKNT scientific panels in shaping the
Comprehensive Program whose time frame was also
extended to the year 2000. The Program, finally
completed in about 20 volumes by fall 1979 but not
yet released publicly, was the centerpiece of the
Academy's general meeting in December 1979. This
meeting was attended-also for the first time-by
Baybakov.
The July 1979 party-government decree on improving
planning sought to formalize the place of the 20-year
Comprehensive Program for S&T Progress in the
planning system. The decree mandated that such a
program, adjusted and updated every five years, be
the first stage of the planning cycle and serve as a
general frame of reference for drafting the 10-year
basic guidelines for economic and social development
and the five-year economic plan. In accord with this
procedure, the 1981-85 plan was shaped, in part, on
the basis of the Comprehensive Program for S&T
the long-range economic plan "was a
Subsequently, the leadership has taken additional
measures to broaden participation in the Program and
to strengthen its role as a driving force behind
Moscow's economic planning for the 1986-90 period
and beyond:
? Comprehensive programs are being elaborated in all
the union republics as integral parts of the national
Comprehensive Program.
? A 20-year Comprehensive Program for S&T Pro-
gress also is being jointly drafted for CEMA.
Following much public Soviet prodding, the June
1984 CEMA summit meeting formally approved
the idea. Shortly thereafter, party secretary Nikolay
Ryzhkov observed in Pravda that such a program
"will enable CEMA countries to pursue a more
coordinated S&T policy and will undoubtedly be an
important new instrument for socialist integration."
Debate Over S&T Progress Program Update
Current efforts to update the Comprehensive Program
to the year 2005, however, have again brought long-
range S&T policy and development strategies to the
forefront of Soviet debate on the economy. This
revision has generated pressure for improved policy
Progress to the year 2000.
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analysis and technology assessment along with dis-
agreement over directions and priorities:
? In March 1982, Academician Nikolay Fedorenko,
head of the Academy's Economics Department,
emphasized in the Soviet press the need for better
grounded forecasts and recommendations in prepar-
ing the updated Program. He was also apprehensive
about the adequacy of the existing science and
technology base-R&D facilities and staffs-to
meet mounting expectations for faster advances in
S&T.
? In June 1982, the late Academician Nikolay
Inozemtsev, Director of the World Economics and
International Relations Institute (IMEMO), ob-
served in the Academy's journal that the prelimi-
nary broad outlines of the revised Program raised
"definite doubts and dangers." He implicitly criti-
cized its drafters for being too conservative and for
relying on yesterday's technology to solve tomor-
row's problems and strongly suggested that the
emerging shape of the updated Comprehensive Pro-
gram was insufficient to narrow the USSR's tech-
nology lag.'
More recently, Soviet political leaders have become
increasingly critical of the Comprehensive Program,
especially with reference to its adequacy as a blue-
print for technological change:
? Politburo member Grigoriy Romanov, at a Lenin-
grad oblast party committee (obkom) meeting in
March 1983, drew attention to the conservative
thrust of the evolving 20-year regional program, and
he castigated both party and economic officials for
failing to grasp the significance of long-range devel-
opment questions.
' IMEMO has primary responsibility for monitoring international
economic trends and policies and has reportedly been heavily
formed at the Institute in early 1982 to study and forecast S&T
developments in developed Western countries and to suggest meth-
from the Ministries of Shipbuilding, the Radio Industry, and
Aviation Industry-initiated through IMEMO a close monitoring
? Lev Zaykov, Romanov's successor as Leningrad
party chief, took another swipe at the 20-year
regional program at a plenum of the oblast party
committee in October 1983. He called for "funda-
mental revisions" to permit faster economic mod-
ernization and the introduction of modern automa-
tion and computer technology to improve
productivity and conserve scarce labor and material
resources.
? Kyamran Bagirov, who replaced Politburo member
Geydar Aliyev as Azerbaijan First Secretary, sin-
gled out "major shortcomings and omissions" in his
republic's Comprehensive Program at a special par-
ty plenum in December 1983 and remanded it back
to planning authorities for reworking.
? Politburo candidate member and Georgian party
leader Eduard Shevardnadze, at a republic plenum
in February 1984, called planning for the 21st
century "today's most acute problem." It is "espe-
cially urgent," he stressed, "because we are still
reaping the consequences of not having been suffi-
ciently farsighted and able to forecast properly."
How this political criticism translates into an im-
proved long-range strategy and policy planning in the
near term, however, remains to be seen.
At the March 1985 general meeting of the USSR
Academy of Sciences, the Academy's Chief Scientific
Secretary reported that Gosplan had examined and
approved the updated Comprehensive Program for
S&T Progress (1986-2005). He also added, "Extensive
use is being made of its materials in drawing up the
basic guidelines for the country's economic and social
development up to the year 2000 and the 1986-90
Five-Year Plan."
In April 1984, General Secretary Konstantin Cher-
nenko added new political significance to the updated
Comprehensive Program by linking it with ongoing 25X1
leadership efforts to prepare a new edition of the
CPSU Program to be approved at the next party
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congress, to be held in February 1986.' In an April
1984 speech to a special Politburo commission
charged with revising the CPSU Program, he empha-
sized that better use should be made of the forecasts
and assessments of the Comprehensive Program to
substantiate the provisions and goals included in the
new CPSU Program.
Priority Programs
The Comprehensive Program for S&T Progress also
has become a driving force for setting national priori-
ties. Kirilenko in the August 1981 Kommunist article,
for example, stressed that the Program:
Should include those key national economic and
social problems on which the efforts of scientists
along with resources and funds should above all be
concentrated, and it should serve as the basis for
forming large-scale target (goal-oriented) pro-
grams.
In line with this approach, the 1981-85 Five-Year
Plan included, according to published sources, a list of
15 special problems for which economic target pro-
grams were being drafted. Eleven of the 15 programs
reportedly were included at the time of adoption of
the plan in late 1981 (see insets). These programs,
effectively subprograms of the long-term Comprehen-
sive Program, are intended to hasten modernization of
critical economic sectors. They have been described
by Soviet sources as the "main links" and "backbone"
of the 1981-85 plan and economic strategy for future
five-year plans. Despite their stated importance, how-
ever, most of these programs have not yet been
implemented, and those that have-the Food and
Energy Programs-have not progressed at the pace
National Economic and Social Target
Programs for the 1980s a
Economywide
Expansion of quantity and quality offood
Increased production of new types of consumer goods
and better services
Reduction in the use of manual labor
Conservation of raw materials and energy
Use of chemicals as substitutes and supplements
Improved use and processing of minerals
Expanded production of extremely scarce materials
that are largely imported
Specific sectors
Machine building
Energy
Transportation
Metallurgy
Regional
Development of the West Siberian oil and gas
complex
Construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM)
Railroad and economic development of the BAM
zone
Agricultural redevelopment of northern European
Russia's industrial zone
Development of the Angara-Yenesey region in East
Siberia
a We have identified these programs from various Soviet open-
source materials. Four are major regional development programs
that focus largely on the establishment of new resource
(particularly energy) bases and major industrial centers.
originally intended.
Raising Priority for S&T Programs
The leadership recognizes that achievement of the
objectives of the Comprehensive Program for S&T
Progress and its subsidiary 15 priority programs
'The CPSU Program is supposed to set the general party line for
an extended period and to serve as a guide for domestic and foreign
policies of the USSR. The program now under revision dates from
the Khrushchev era (1961). The 1961 Program set detailed but
unrealistic and even utopian goals, "including overtaking the US
economy" by 1970 and entering the era of full Communism and
requires better linkage to Soviet scientific and techno-
logical developments. Since the mid-1960s the GKNT
has been responsible for identifying and commission-
ing work on key science and technology problems, and
a list of priority S&T programs has been included in
the plans. This effort in the past, however, had no
bureaucratic clout and was not well integrated into
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Since 1982 the leadership has paid more attention to
implementing these target programs. Although sever-
al appear to be still in draft and bogged down in
negotiation, some-because of strong prodding by the
leadership-have been steered through the bureau-
cracy and approved at the highest levels:
? The Food Program, extending to 1990, was ap-
proved at the May 1982 Central Committee plenum
and remains a major agenda item at Politburo
meetings. A special Land Reclamation Program to
the year 2000 possibly a major component of or
addition to the Food Program-was approved at
the October 1984 Plenum.
? A 20-year Energy Program, reviewed in draft by the
Politburo in April 1983, was approved by the June
1983 Central Committee plenum.
? Development of a Consumer Goods and Services
Program for the period 1986 to 2000 was approved
by the Politburo in September 1983 and endorsed
by the Central Committee plenum in December. In
his February 1985 election speech to the Russian
Republic Supreme Soviet, Gorbachev affirmed that
work on this program was "being completed."
According to US Embassy sources, however, so far
a commitment has not been made to provide enough
resources to make it viable.
? A Transportation Program through the year 2000
also has been drafted, according to Soviet officials.
With the exception of the Food Program, only broad
generalities have been published concerning these
programs.
economic planning or development. These projects
lacked the strong goal orientation, high priority, close
producer-consumer relations, and strong centralized
management so characteristic of Soviet weapons pro-
grams and did not provide a vehicle for promoting
technology transfer between the military and civilian
sectors. As a result, most of these civilian S&T
programs rarely went beyond the research phase-
ending in development of a prototype that, in GKNT
Chairman Marchuk's words, "hangs in midair" for
years before being put into production and use.
In an attempt to overcome these problems, the Soviet
leadership has adopted new measures to develop
specific large-scale S&T programs that cut across
bureaucratic lines and promote technology transfer
between defense industries and the civilian economy.
The 1981-85 Five-Year Plan defined S&T priorities
more sharply than previous plans, emphasized S&T
programs to address major problems of the economy,
and allocated substantial resources to implement
them. These programs also have broad economic
application to both the defense and civilian sectors.
More specifically:
? The list of national priority S&T programs was
trimmed from about 200 in the 1976-80 plan to 170.
? According to GKNT First Deputy Chairman Dmi-
triy Zhimerin in a June 1983 Planovoye
khozyaystvo article, 37 billion rubles were to be
spent on the domestically generated aspects in the
1981-85 plan. This sum represented about 30 per-
cent of total USSR science outlays, which were
likely to approach 130 billion rubles in this five-year
plan period, according to Soviet measures.'
equivalent to 30 billion rubles has been set aside for
foreign technology acquisition in support of the 170
programs.
' Zhimerin breaks down the 37 billion rubles on the domestic or
indigenous aspects of the 170 S&T programs as follows: 14 billion
rubles for scientific research, development, testing, and evaluation
and 23 billion rubles for development of production capacity for the
manufacture of new products. Before the current S&T priorities list
was final and the 1981-85 plan was formally adopted, a high-
ranking Gosplan official cited, in an earlier issue of the same
journal, a planned figure of 39 billion rubles for 168 S&T
programs. This sum included 11.5 billion rubles for R&D, 5.3
billion rubles for testing and evaluation, and 22.2 billion rubles for
development of productive capacity. See Ya. Ryabov, "Questions of
Working Out Comprehensive Target Programs," Planovoye kho-
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? Among the 170 programs, the plan designates for
the first time 41 special "target programs" (for a
partial list of S&T target programs, see appendix
A), which include series production of new equip-
ment and aim at speeding up the introduction of
several critical technologies-including lasers, fiber
optics, industrial robots, powder metallurgy, and
microelectronics-into the economy.
Many of the 170 S&T programs (see table) were set
up to support and complement the 15 national eco-
nomic and social target programs. The highly sketchy
published versions of the Food and Energy Programs,
for example, contain sections on science and technol-
ogy that include projects associated with individual
S&T priority programs:
? Various development programs support the Energy
Program-fast breeder reactors; long-distance pow-
er transmission lines of 1,500 kilovolt (kV) dc and
1,150 kV ac; special large-diameter, laminated,
high-pressure gas pipelines; enhanced oil recovery
techniques; synthetic liquid fuels; and better equip-
ment and technology for both underground and
open-pit mining.
? To support the Food Program nearly 20 S&T
programs provide for the development of more than
300 new kinds of agricultural machines, new types
of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, stronger variet-
ies of grain and other crops, as well as the introduc-
tion of modern food-processing technologies.
? Some S&T programs may well undergird the forth-
coming Consumer Goods and Services Program:
developing new drugs, medicines, and modern diag-
nostic equipment; new kinds of industrial safety
equipment; a range of more sophisticated consumer
durables including electronic household appliances;
and retooling light industry.
Indeed, if the output targets of these and other major
programs are to be met without greatly exceeding
planned costs, more rapid progress in meeting S&T
program goals would appear to be a vital precondition
for their successful implementation.
National Priority S&T Programs
in the 1981-85 Five-Year Plan
General Focus of Programs
Total Number
Target
of Programs
Programs
Total
170
41
Power engineering, electrical
10
4
engineering
Fuel, energy, and geology
13
6
Chemistry and petrochemistry
16
7
Machine building and
22
metalworking
Timber, wood processing, and
4
paper and woodpulp
Light and food industry, consumer
durables
8
Computer technology and
15
4
communications
Agriculture (including land
18
7
reclamation)
- _
Construction
10
1
Environmental protection
7
0
"Scientific" organization of labor
Other
a Target programs-in contrast to other S&T programs-include
the stage of series production of new equipment and aim at
accelerating the broad-scale introduction of key technologies and
innovations into the economy, generally within the current plan
period. Nontarget programs are geared more toward long-term
research in the most promising areas of S&T or toward the
development of technology to be put into use generally during the
following five-year plan.
Source: Ya. Ryabov, "Management of Scientific and Technical
Progress and Growth of Production Efficiency," Planovoye
khozyaystvo, 10 (October 1982).
community and enlist East European support for
these priority S&T programs:
? The USSR Academy of Sciences is participating in
112, or two-thirds, of the programs (including 32
target programs), up 15 percent from the previous
plan, according to Soviet published sources.
During the current 1981-85 plan period, Moscow also
has intensified efforts to mobilize the Soviet S&T
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? The number of Soviet higher educational establish-
ments taking part in these programs has more than
doubled, according to Soviet open sources. They
now participate in 140 of the 170 programs.
? CEMA participation in Soviet S&T programs also
is on the rise. By mid-1982, Bloc countries were
involved in 12 programs on a multilateral basis and
in 40 programs on a bilateral basis, according to the
Soviet press. Since 1983, new CEMA cooperative
agreements have been signed in the areas of micro-
processors, microelectronics, and robotics, while ex-
isting agreements have been amended or expanded
in food processing, energy, machine building, and
Industry, and the Radio Industry[
consumer goods.
Military Involvement
Although none of the publicly identified S&T pro-
grams under the general responsibility of the GKNT
are weapons development programs, many (particu-
larly the target programs) focus on the development of
new technology, materials, and manufacturing pro-
cesses that can be used to help design and produce
sophisticated weapons. There is growing evidence,
moreover, that Soviet military R&D and production
organizations are now participating in several civilian
S&T programs as both developers and end users of
new technology. These programs appear to be an
important mechanism for technology transfer between
military and civilian sectors; they are being used both
to modernize the civil machine-building base and to
retool defense industry with critical high technologies:
? Several organizations involved in the Industrial
Robots Program, identified in the Soviet open press,
are major R&D centers of defense industrial minis-
tries. They include these science and production
associations-Pozitron (Defense Industry), Ritm
(Shipbuilding), Svetlana (Electronics Industry), and
the Leningrad Optical-Mechanical Association
(LOMO) (Defense Industry).
Fe in the
? The Ministries of the Radio Industry, Communica-
tions Equipment Industry, and Electronics Industry,
according to Soviet press reports, are major partici-
pants in about a dozen programs in computer
technology, microprocessors, and microelectronics.
? Various elements of the Ministry of Defense Indus-
try (MOP) are probably taking part in the Industrial
Lasers Program
E The Soviet press also reports that,
under this program, laser technology is being intro-
duced at the Baltic Shipyard. The Academy of
Sciences' Center for Industrial Lasers in Troitsk,
established in 1980 and identified by Soviet open
sources as a major participant, draws heavily from
military-oriented laser facilities and personnel.
The full extent of defense industry involvement in and
commitment to these programs, however, is not yet
clear.
The August 1983 Decree on S&T
Portions of the special decree "On Measures To
Accelerate S&T Progress in the National Economy,"
adopted 28 August 1983 by the CPSU Central Com-
mittee and USSR Council of Ministers, supplement
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earlier measures by calling for expanded use of goal-
oriented program-planning techniques at all levels of
the economy. Beginning with the 1986-90 plan, large-
scale S&T programs are to be drafted not only for the
170 national programs but also to address major S&T
problems specific to individual union republics,
branch ministries, large economic regions, and territo-
rial-production complexes. Some of these listed pro-
grams have been launched since adoption of the
New items also are being added to the list of national
S&T priorities. Zhimerin hinted at this in his June
1983 article when he noted that "more than 170
programs" were in development:
? The August S&T decree authorized a new target
program for flexible manufacturing systems (FMS)
and advanced automation technologies.
? A program to accelerate the USSR's development
of high-speed computers-which Academy Vice
President Yevgeniy Velikhov, in December 1983,
had recently been appointed to
head-may also have been put on the priorities list.
? The Politburo at its 6 September 1984 meeting,
according to the Soviet media, issued directives for
developing what appears to be a target S&T pro-
gram for introducing automatic rotary and rotary-
conveyor production lines in the economy.
meeting of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences called
for the inclusion of republic target programs on
biotechnology, robotics, and flexible automated pro-
duction in the 1986-90 plan.
In accordance with the instructions of the party-
government August decree on S&T, several ministries
have now begun to draft their own branchwide pro-
grams to spur technological modernization that pre-
sumably build on national programs already ap-
proved. For example, the Ministry of the Food
Industry, according to a December 1983 article in the
ministry's official journal, has been ordered to develop
a program to introduce low-waste and waste-free food
production equipment for better processing of agricul-
tural raw materials. Also in 1983, the newspaper of
the Ministry of the Meat and Dairy Industry reported
that a target program was being drawn up to auto-
mate production and management throughout the
industry. The Soviet press reported that the Ministry
of Railways at an expanded collegium meeting-
which had been called to discuss the August S&T
decree-decided to draw up target programs to raise
the technological level of this troubled transportation
the August
decree may have prompted an intensification of the
effort that began in the early 1970s to speed up
innovation in the defense industries.
Local party leaders have begun to press the pace of
S&T development in their bailiwicks. For example, in
Leningrad, where authorities were granted greater
autonomy to conduct comprehensive regional plan-
ning by a special decision of the Politburo in Septem-
ber 1983, the party organization in December 1983
decided "to considerably expand" the S&T programs
section of the 1984 draft economic plan. At its April
1984 plenum, the obkom set up a special council
headed by First Secretary Zaykov to coordinate an
accelerated computerization program for the Lenin-
grad region through 1990. Politburo member Vladi-
mir Shcherbitskiy at the 30 March 1984 general
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Despite these measures to raise the priority of S&T
programs and improve their management, Soviet
press commentary indicates that this effort has not
been entirely successful. Several S&T programs, in-
cluding target programs, are running behind schedule.
Both civilian and defense industrial ministries partici-
pating in these programs have been criticized for
failure to devote adequate funds, personnel, and man-
agement attention to them. While this criticism indi-
cates continuing leadership pressure on the bureau-
cracy, it is also apparent that bureaucratic resistance
and technological conservatism have been difficult to
overcome.
Reorganizing the S&T Policy Establishment
Calls for improvement of long-range planning and
bureaucratic resistance to it led the leadership to
reorganize the S&T establishment to make it more
responsive to its demands and more able to conduct
comprehensive, integrated policies. These efforts, be-
gun under Brezhnev, include important personnel and
organizational changes in the three national agencies
that coordinate the development of science and tech-
nology: Gosplan, the GKNT, and the USSR Acade-
my of Sciences (see inset "S&T Policy Actors"). In
each, individuals-who have strong backgrounds in
applied S&T, close ties with military R&D organiza-
tions or defense industry, and apparently keen interest
in accelerating S&T advances-have been put into
key leadership positions.
More broadly, the reorganization aims at improving
S&T interaction between the military and civilian
sectors of the economy to the mutual benefit of both.
Increased interaction is a two-way-not a one-way-
street. On the one hand, the defense establishment is
being called upon to assist civilian industries in appli-
cation of technology. On the other hand, the scientific
community (especially the Academy of Sciences) is
being driven to enhance military-related R&D, while
key civilian ministries (especially those related to
defense) are under pressure to help modernize the
defense industries as well as their own plant and
equipment to better support weapons production.
Gosplan
Gosplan has been undergoing significant reorganiza-
tion since 1979. These changes-probably stemming
from a never-published 1978 Politburo decision to
strengthen Gosplan-are designed to overcome the
traditional "production bias" and the "branch organi-
zation bias" of the planning apparatus, to strengthen
its role in supervising the economic bureaucracy and
promoting technological modernization, and to im-
prove its ability to integrate S&T into economic policy
and plans.
First, oversight for S&T matters was made the special
responsibility of a first deputy chairman of Gosplan.
A new S&T portfolio apparently was created with the
appointment in February 1979 of Yakov Ryabov as a
fifth First Deputy Chairman. (Previously, Gosplan
had four first deputies, who were responsible for
defense, heavy industry, agriculture, and construc-
tion.) Ryabov had been CPSU Secretary for Defense
Industry since 1976. From the time of his arrival until
his departure from Gosplan in May 1983 when he was
named head of the State Committee for Foreign
Economic Relations, Ryabov was clearly the chief
spokesman and prime mover for S&T policy within
the planning hierarchy.'
A designer-engineer turned party secretary and a longtime critic
of Gosplan, Yakov Ryabov was a protege of Politburo member
Andrey Kirilenko. He served as Sverdlovsk party chief from 1971
to 1976 when he was elected to the central party Secretariat.
Although the reasons for his removal from that post still are not
clear to us, Ryabov seems to have been put into Gosplan to press for
reforms from within and particularly to raise the importance of
S&T issues in economic planning and policy deliberations. The
decree appointing Ryabov is unusual in that it states that the
appointment is made "in connection with the need to strengthen
further the USSR Gosplan." Within a month of Ryabov's arrival,
moreover, Gosplan began to participate for the first time in a major
way with the Academy of Sciences and GKNT in work on the
Comprehensive Program for S&T Progress, according to Soviet
published sources. During his stay at Gosplan, he wrote and spoke
extensively on the role of priority S&T programs. In September
1984, Ryabov was again reassigned and appointed a deputy premier
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A large and complex network of special government
agencies is involved in the formulation and conduct of
Soviet S& T policy. These agencies, which have over-
lapping responsibilities and shared powers, plan and
manage the broad policies and priorities decided by
higher CPSU organs and approved and budgeted by
the USSR Council of Ministers. However, this web-
like structure impedes the development and imple-
mentation of comprehensive S& T policy.
The GKNT is the principal organization charged with
maintaining a unified national S& T policy and ensur-
ing that research results are utilized and applied
effectively. It has overall responsibility for S& T
planning, specifically for applied civilian research
and development. It coordinates scientific and techni-
cal activities, especially in priority areas; together
with Gosplan, plans capital investments for science;
approves organizational changes, including the cre-
ation and closing of research facilities; manages the
dissemination of S& T information; and monitors the
funds allocated to science. With only a few excep-
tions, however, the GKNT does not have its own
research institutes.
The GKNT has primary responsibility for coordinat-
ing and monitoring the priority S& T programs in-
cluded in the five-year national economic plan. These
projects-numbering 170 in the 1981-85 plan-are
usually multidisciplinary in scope and involve the
combined efforts of economic ministries, state com-
mittees, and the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In addition, the GKNT plays an important role in
coordinating efforts to acquire foreign technology to
fulfill the needs of the military and the defense
industries as well as those of the civilian sectors of
the economy. It supports both legal and illegal
acquisition. The GKNT also collects S& T informa-
tion through a vast, complex network of cooperative
agreements with other countries and private firms.
The GKNT's collection effort is closely coordinated
Gosplan is responsible for overall planning of the
Soviet economy and the introduction of new technol-
ogy into the production process. Gosplan works with
the GKNT in overseeing large interministerial R&D
projects, especially priority S& T programs involving
series production of targeted new technologies; con-
siders the overall magnitude of capital investment for
R&D; and consults with the Ministry of Finance and
GKNT to determine the levels offundingfor projects.
Gosplan also works with the State Committee for
Material and Technical Supplies and the GKNT on
planning and distribution of equipment and supplies
for R&D organizations; and it participates in devel-
oping plans for training scientific manpower and for
improving wages and working conditions for S& T
personnel. In contrast to the GKNT, which empha-
sizes development of scientific and technological ca-
pabilities and coordination of the R&D enterprise,
Gosplan strives to achieve economic growth through
more efficient industrial production, based-among
other factors-on improving R&D performance and
utilization.
The Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) of the
Presidium of the Council of Ministers is the principal
coordinating agency for military R&D and monitors
major weapons development programs. The VPK also
has the dominant coordinating and decisionmaking
role in the Soviet foreign technology acquisition
program, setting national priorities, and monitoring
program fulfillment.
Other organizations are involved in developing plans,
setting policy, and monitoring performance in the
S&T system, but they have a much narrower focus
and mandate. They include the State Committees on
Standards, Inventions and Discoveries, Material and
Technical Supply, and Construction Affairs; the Min-
istry of Finance; the Higher Certification Commis-
sion; and Agencies of Hydrometeorology and on
Utilization of Atomic Energy.
with that of the Soviet intelligence services.
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The day-to-day administration and actual conduct of
R&D is performed within three institutional subsys-
tems, each concentrating on specific stages of the
R&D process:
? The Academies of Sciences (both all union and
republic) specialize in fundamental research. The
USSR Academy conducts its own fundamental (and
some applied) research, but it also is in charge of
drawing up national plans for fundamental research
in the natural and social sciences in the USSR and
oversees most basic research in other institutions.
The USSR Academy also develops with GKNT the
20- Year Comprehensive Program for S& T Progress
before each successive five-year plan and partici-
pates in more than two-thirds of the national
priority S&T programs monitored by the GKNT.
? The Industrial Branch Ministries conduct most
applied research and virtually all design, develop-
ment, engineering, and production. The branch in-
stitutes attached to individual ministries perform
the major portion of Soviet research focusing on the
application of scientific findings to production.
? The Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary
Education (MinVUZ) undertakes some basic re-
search, but its facilities concentrate more on ap-
plied R&D, funded under contract by the defense
and civilian industries. In terms of overall Soviet
R&D, the share of research in higher educational
establishments is quite small (about 5 percent). The
main function of the MinVUZ is teaching, especial-
ly the training of scientists and engineers for indus-
try, and not research.
Yuriy Maslyukov, a former deputy minister in the
Ministry of the Defense Industry, may have taken
over Ryabov's S&T duties at Gosplan.' Maslyukov
was identified as a Gosplan first deputy chairman
by Pravda in
a list of deputies elected to the USSR Supreme Soviet
in March 1984. From 1972 to 1975, Maslyukov seems
to have headed the Chief Technical Directorate of the
MOP, which oversees development of scientific re-
search, experimental design and testing, and the
implementation of new technology within the MOP.
Second, the Gosplan Science and Technology Depart-
ment, which handles questions of innovation and
monitors national S&T programs, has been reorga-
nized and given new leadership. At the October 1980
party plenum, Brezhnev called upon the military
R&D establishment to share its talents with the
' The division of responsibilities within the leadership core of
Gosplan remains unclear to us. A source at Gosplan told US
Embassy officials in June 1983 that Maslyukov had recently been
brought in to assume the duties of Lev Voronin, a former first
deputy minister of the MOP who had been the first deputy
chairman of Gosplan in charge of defense industry since October
1980. Voronin, according to this same source, in turn, has taken
over the former general economic planning and heavy industry
responsibilities of Nikolay Ryzhkov, who in November 1982 trans-
ferred from Gosplan to the CPSU Secretariat. However assign-
ments of these various leadership responsibilities have occurred,
Gosplan, for the time being at least, has two first deputy chairmen
who come from both the production planning (Voronin) and the new
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Top Secret
civilian sector. Shortly afterward, Aleksey Chubar-
enko, an experienced defense manager, was brought
into Gosplan to head the expanded S&T office and
has been since at least 1982 a member of the Gosplan
Collegium.e Chubarenko had previously been a deputy
chairman of the Directorate of Experimental Work
and of the Scientific-Technical Council of the MOP
since at least 1968. The latter body is concerned with
S&T development in the MOP and is responsible for
improving the organization and effectiveness of the
ministry's institutes and design bureaus.
Third, and more general, a new statute on Gosplan,
approved by the Council of Ministers in June 1982,
mandated structural changes intended to broaden the
perspective and expertise within Gosplan, so it could
better tackle problems of economic modernization:
? The membership of Gosplan was expanded to in-
clude representatives of other state committees and
institutions. The heads of several state committees
(including the GKNT), the Minister of Finance, the
8 This unit was previously named the Department of Summary
Planning for the Introduction of Scientific and Technical Achieve-
ments into the National Economy. It had been headed since at least
1967 by Konstantin Yefimov, who seems to have had no defense
industry background
Chief of the Central Statistical Administration, and
a vice president of the Academy of Sciences now are
all ex officio members of Gosplan.
? A group of senior economic and scientific advisers
was formed to work directly under the Chairman of
Gosplan.
? Special territorial plenipotentiaries with small staff
offices are being established in Sverdlovsk, Novosi-
birsk, Irkutsk, and Khabarovsk.
they will serve as the "eyes and
ears" of Gosplan in the Urals, West Siberia, East
Siberia, and the Far East, respectively, where they
will supervise major regional economic and S&T
development programs.
with the ministries.
In addition, the new statute authorized a reorganiza-
tion of Gosplan's departmental structure to provide an
organizational framework for more effective program
planning and better interministerial coordination. All
substantive departments have been made part of a
three-tier structure-administrations covering large
complexes of economic activity, "summary" depart-
ments, and "ordinary" departments. The S&T De-
partment has been elevated to the status of an
administration. Furthermore, appointment of the
most important department and administration heads,
evidently like Chubarenko, will now be approved by
the Council of Ministers for the express purpose of
raising their stature and bureaucratic clout in dealing
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GKNT
The leadership began efforts to improve performance
in the GKNT, the balance wheel in civilian S&T
policy, in 1979. At the November Central Committee
plenum, Brezhnev criticized the GKNT for not being
more "energetic" in pressing both the acquisition and
the application of emerging technologies.
New Chief. In January 1980, Guriy Marchuk re-
placed Vladimir Kirillin, who had headed the GKNT
since 1965. Marchuk was a logical choice to succeed
Kirillin. He is a strong proponent of applied research
and,
more tough minded than Kirillin. As Chairman of the
Academy of Sciences' Siberian Department since
1975, Marchuk had actively promoted close ties be-
tween science and industry. In March 1979, he be-
came chairman of one of the newly created Science
and Technology Commissions in the USSR Supreme
Soviet. Marchuk evidently impressed the Soviet lead-
ership with the importance of developing domestic
capabilities for innovation and reducing, over the long
run, technological dependence on the West. At the
same time, however, he almost certainly recognizes
the USSR's continued need for foreign technology
and equipment. Under his leadership, the GKNT has
conducted an aggressive program to acquire foreign
S&T.
01! -
AWN. 4000'
Aleksey Kosygin (see inset).
Since becoming GKNT chief, Marchuk, in his public
speeches and articles, has actively pressed for faster
economic modernization at home and within the
Soviet Bloc. He has also begun to reshape the GKNT
leadership by replacing Kirillin's people with a youn-
ger generation of leaders who have strong technical
backgrounds and experience in managing research
and/or technological application. Under Marchuk,
four deputy chairmen of the GKNT-three of whom
were over 70-were retired, while six new deputies-
all between 45 and 55-have been appointed. These
staff and organizational changes have also reportedly
eroded the status and responsibilities of Dzhermen
Gvishiani, the only GKNT Deputy Chairman surviv-
ing from the 1960s and son-in-law of the late Premier
? Oil and Gas.
? Medicine, Health, and Medical Industry.
Reorganization. The GKNT has undergone internal
restructuring that reflects new or expanded activity in
several priority areas. A series on national S&T
programs, which appeared weekly throughout 1983 in
the Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, revealed that the fol-
lowing new departments were formed:
? Interbranch Technologies and Construction
Materials.
? Mechanization and Automation of Production.
? Problems of the Atmosphere and World Oceans.
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According to the Soviet press, some GKNT depart-
ments have also been enlarged and upgraded to the
status of administrations, evidently so they can handle
increased policy planning and program monitoring.
They are the Departments of Machine Building,
Agriculture, and Science Organization. Still other
departments have been renamed to reflect a change of
focus or added responsibilities. The former Environ-
mental Protection Department, for example, is now
called the Low-Waste Technologies and Environmen-
tal Protection Department.
Increased KGB Role. Marchuk has made some
changes within the GKNT organizational structure
that handles foreign S&T contacts. These changes
appear to signal an increased role for Soviet intelli-
gence services in the GKNT's activities and in tech-
nology acquisition as a whole. In particular, the Main
Administration for Scientific and Industrial Coopera-
tion, which oversees these matters and has long been a
KGB stronghold in the GKNT, has begun to assume a
more visible, prominent role:
? Its new head, Aleksey Voskoboy, a KGB lieutenant
general and former deputy head of the First (foreign
operations) Chief Directorate of the KGB, has not
kept a low profile at the GKNT. Unlike Fedor
Martin, whom he apparently replaced in late 1982,
Voskoboy has actively participated in attending
technology exhibits and meetings with Western
businessmen, including those sponsored by the US-
USSR Trade and Economic Council.
During Kirillin's 15 years at the helm of the GKNT,
Dzhermen Gvishiani generally supervised its foreign
S& T relations. Under Marchuk, however, Gvishiani
has fallen into disfavor and been criticized for being
'pro-American " and for rendering international S&T
ties too impractical,
Gviskani is said to be responsible now primarily for
international scientific cooperation, while Vladimir
Kudinov, the former party secretary of the Paton
Electric Welding Institute and GKNT deputy chair-
man since 1981, has become the "curator" or monitor
for international technology exchange and most mat-
ters of industrial cooperation. Kudinov reportedly
oversees the GKNT's Main Administration for Scien-
tific and Industrial Cooperation, including its two
subordinate administrations that handle S&T coop-
eration with capitalist and socialist countries-
GKNT organizational components that used to fall
under Gvishiani's jurisdiction. Although seemingly in
a weaker position in the GKNT, Gvishiani continues
to write articles on economic reform issues for Pravda
and Kommunist.
? Its other KGB officers, Voskoboy's subordinates,
also have appeared openly in intelligence-gathering
activities at international scientific symposiums,
laboratory visits, and trade fairs.
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These changes suggest that the KGB is following a
more aggressive policy to exploit GKNT covers and
both legal and illegal channels for acquisition in
response to the West's tightened controls on high
technology and curtailment of official scientific ex-
changes with the USSR.
applying research more closely to national needs."
USSR Academy of Sciences
Party leaders have also pressed the Academy of
Sciences-the USSR's foremost research complex-
to give more attention to the potential economic and
military applications of its huge research effort. In his
public speeches, especially from the late 1970s on,
Brezhnev hit the Academy hard with this theme of
Under Brezhnev's prodding-continued by his succes-
sors-a group of leaders is now running the Academy
who are more enthusiastically supporting the party's
demands, are closely tied to the military-industrial
complex, and have the experience to direct a more
applications-oriented policy. Four Academy leaders
appear to be the principal players managing institu-
tional and policy change: President Anatoliy Aleksan-
drov and Vice Presidents Vladimir Kotel'nikov, Yev-
geniy Velikhov, and Yuriy Ovchinnikov. Velikhov,
who in November 1977 was promoted to a newly
created vice-presidency for Science and Technology
and is a leading candidate to succeed Aleksandrov,
has been at the center of all recent policy initiatives.
industries
As a result of increased party pressure, the Academy
is becoming increasingly involved in applied science
and development of new technologies. Development of
complex technologies such as lasers and microelec-
tronics-the general task of the R&D system of the
economic ministries-has been retarded by a general-
ly hostile and backward industrial environment and
by a ministerial structure that is highly compartment-
ed along narrow branch lines. The Academy is also
being used more and more, it seems, as a vehicle to
transfer technology from defense industries to the
civilian economy. Furthermore, it continues to support
critical military R&D efforts to design more sophisti-
cated weapons and to help modernize the defense
" At the 1981 party congress, for example, Brezhnev emphasized,
"The country has an acute need for the efforts of 'big science' [the
Academy and defense R&D sector] to be concentrated on the
solution of key economic problems and on discoveries capable of
making genuinely revolutionary changes in production." And he
added,"Without an acceleration of S&T progress now, in the more
complex conditions of the 1980s, it will be impossible to develop the
economy successfully or to accomplish major social tasks."
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? The establishment of new institutes and laborato-
ries-especially since 1980-dedicated to applied
research in substantive areas considered most im-
portant (such as energy, metallurgy, molecular biol-
ogy, and genetic engineering) and in crucial indus-
trial and defense technologies.
? Organizational reforms, reportedly completed by
September 1983, that bring industry representatives
into research teams of various Academy institutes to
help speed up the transfer of R&D into production.
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The shift in orientation is also seen in the increasing
numbers of applied researchers, industry-based engi-
neers, and science administrators, particularly from
the defense sector, in the Academy's membership.
The December 1981 and December 1984 Academy
elections reflected this trend. As a result of the 1981
elections, for example, the Mechanics and Control
Processes Department-one of the departments most
concerned with applied science and traditionally
closely tied to military R&D-became the largest of
the Academy's 16 substantive departments. At that
time Oleg Antonov, the prominent aircraft designer,
and Aleksandr Nadiradze, the chief designer of solid-
propellent ballistic missiles, were elected directly to
the status of full academicians in this Department,
bypassing the stage of corresponding members. New
academicians elected in 1984 are Vladimir Utkin and
Mikhail Reshetnev. Utkin, chief designer at the Dne-
propetrovsk Missile Development and Production
Center, is the designer of the SS-17 and SS- 18
ICBMs. Reshetnev, chief designer at the Krasnoyarsk
Space Components Plant, has designed several series
of Soviet satellites. This general trend in the composi-
tion of its membership is likely to become more
pronounced as the emphasis within the Academy
continues to shift toward more applied science and
deeper involvement in the industrial process and
New Emphasis on Applied Research. Though discern-
ible and a point of contention for some time, the
Academy's changing emphasis from basic to applied
research has intensified in the 1980s and is evident in
the:
? Increased participation by the Academy system
(including the republic and specialized branch acad-
emies) in national S&T priority programs and the
appointment of prominent Academy scientists as
national coordinators of key target programs.12
" For example, according to Soviet publications, Aleksandrov over-
sees the nuclear reactors program; Velikhov, the industrial lasers
and "supercomputer" programs; Ovchinnikov, the biotechnology
program; and Academician Nikolay Yenikolopov, the composite
weapons development.
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Expanded Role in Computer Technology. The Acade-
my has begun to play an expanding role in the
development of computer technology and advanced
electronics. Both Aleksandrov and Velikhov in their
speeches at the March 1984 general meeting of the
USSR Academy underscored the high priority the
party assigned to this task. They emphasized that the
Academy is being called upon to help surmount the
obstacles retarding development of the Soviet domes-
tic computer industry-bureaucratic barriers within
the ministries as well as US bans and tightened
COCOM restrictions on the sale of advanced Western
technology to the USSR."
The Academy's increased involvement has been espe-
cially evident during the past two years:
? At its general meeting in March 1983, the Academy
created a Department of Information Science, Com-
puter Technology, and Automation-the first new
department in 15 years. At its next meeting a year
later, Vice President Velikhov was named its head
and organizer. In late 1983, Velikhov told a US
official that he was also recently appointed to head a
new national program to accelerate the USSR's
development of ultra-high-speed "supercomputers."
? Several new computer technology institutes are
being established under Velikhov's department to
strengthen the Academy's scientific and experimen-
tal base, thus enabling it to play an enhanced
coordination role. According to the Soviet press,
they include the Problems of Information Science
Institute, Problems of Cybernetics Institute, Prob-
lems of Technology of Microelectronics and Ultra-
pure Materials Institute, and Microelectronics Insti-
tute-all headed by prize-winning engineer-
academicians with close ties to the defense-related
ministries of the electronics and radio industries.
" Aleksandrov, in an Izvestiya article (19 January 1984) called for
intensified computerization, noting, "The United States has im-
posed a very strict embargo on the export of electronic technology
and electronic equipment to our country in the hope of slowing
down or halting our progress in this exceptionally important sphere.
In so doing, however, it has forgotten that our science and
technology have independently resolved tasks of equal complexity
such as the creation of nuclear and missile hardware without
receiving anything from abroad and in a fairly short time. This task
is not beyond our motherland or its science and technology and our
The December 1984 Academy elections further indi-
cated the enhanced priority assigned by the Soviet
leadership to computer technology as well as the
deepening involvement of the military R&D sector in
Velikhov's new department. As a result of the elec-
tions, 14 full and 26 corresponding members were
elected to this department. This number is nearly
twice the number of listed vacancies announced in
Izvestiya on 14 September 1984. Among them, more-
over, are several scientists who work at defense-
related establishments. Anatoliy Savin, chief of the
Kometa Design Bureau, Lev Koshkin, chief of a
design bureau in Klimovsk, and Germogen Pospelov,
a Soviet general and automatic control specialist who
formerly headed the Academy's Section of Applied
Problems (the Academy's liaison point with the Soviet
military-industrial complex)-all were elected acade-
micians. New corresponding members who have de-
fense ties and who are in Velikhov's department
include such institute directors as Veniamin Yefre-
mov (Scientific Research Institute No. 20-radar
engineering) and Anatoliy Kalayev (Kalmykov Radio
Engineering Institute in Leningrad). Other corre-
sponding members with defense-related backgrounds
are Pavel Agadzhanov (major general and first direc-
tor of the Air Defense Systems Engineering Institute
in Moscow), Anatoliy Basistov (an air defense radar
specialist associated with the Vympel Design Bureau),
and Dmitriy Kozlov (department head at the Moscow
Central Design Bureau for Space and ICBMs at the
Progress Aircraft Plant).
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Making Computers a Tool of Science. Intensive
efforts are under way to introduce computer technol-
ogy and information techniques into science to im-
prove its quality and productivity. A "blackboard
mentality" and the lack of a strong base in technology
have traditionally been weaknesses of Soviet science;
Academy leaders view them as major brakes on the
development of science." Consequently, they are tak-
ing several steps to overcome them:
? One of the priority S&T target programs in the
1981-85 plan is devoted to the automation of re-
search and to computerized design.
? A new Institute for Applied Automated Systems,
formed in mid-1982 and directed by the son of
Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) Chairman
Smirnov, is developing a computerized data trans-
mission system for the USSR and union republic
academies of sciences. The first local computer
networks of this system-called Akademset-are
working in the cities of Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev,
Novosibirsk, and Riga, according to the Soviet
press. The entire system-scheduled to be opera-
tional by the end of 1985-is directed at overcoming
the severe communications barriers within Soviet
science that have impeded the dissemination and
application of new S&T advances.
? Academy researchers also will have access to anoth-
er computerized information system being estab-
lished by the GKNT. This network, which began
service in early 1983, will eventually connect the
capitals of the union republics and 36 oblast centers.
It will also give Soviet scientists real-time access to
the GKNT's information on foreign scientific publi-
cations, patents, and licenses, as well as improved
communication among users.
" Aleksandrov in his January 1984 Izvestiya article emphasized
that, without a massive educational effort to raise the computer
literacy of the Soviet population, efforts to modernize the economy
will "turn out to be only a large useless expenditure." He called for
a national computerization program "comparable to the one we
developed to eliminate [general] illiteracy after the October Revolu-
tion-a program that is probably no less important in today's
world." Velikhov, whose son has an Apple computer, also strongly
advocates more education in computers.
Velikhov is working with the GKNT to learn about American
computer-based educational systems. The widespread introduction
of computers into Soviet schools is a major goal of a comprehensive
education reform program, approved by the Central Committee
and endorsed by the Supreme Soviet in April 1984.
? The Soviets have also heightened efforts to access
and exploit Western S&T data bases includin
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Smirnov also 25X1
nopecl tnat expanded use ot foreign data bases
would greatly benefit Moscow's long-range efforts
in computer-aided design. He called for an all-union
conference in 1985 on the problems of working with
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The Active Role of Regional Science Centers. The
Academy has also pressed its regional scientific cen-
ters to play a more active role in solving regional
economic problems and in coordinating the research
of industrial and educational establishments with that
of academy institutes. Apparently, party leaders are
trying, nationally and locally, to use the Academy to
break down or circumvent ministerial barriers to
technological change.
The Academy itself, backed by regional party leaders,
has sought to strengthen its role in spearheading the
advance of S&T in Leningrad, a major center of
defense industry and high technology development.
For example, a new scientific center of the Academy
was created in Leningrad in March 1983, supple-
menting the three existing regional organizations-
the Siberian Department, and the Urals and the Far
Eastern Scientific Centers. The Leningrad Center,
which coordinates research of the northwestern eco-
nomic region, is headed by Academician Igor' Glebov,
who works for the giant Electrosila Production Asso-
ciation of the Ministry of Power Machine Building.
Glebov, who also chairs the S&T Commission at the
USSR Supreme Soviet's Council of the Union,
worked closely with Romanov when the latter was
Leningrad party chief.
The Academy also promoted S&T in the Urals, one of
the USSR's oldest industrial and most technologically
backward areas. In October 1983, the CPSU Central
Committee issued a special decree on the Academy's
Urals Scientific Center aimed at improving its work.
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The decree called upon the Council of Ministers to
increase the resources devoted to the center. F
Of the union republic academies, the Ukrainian
Academy of Sciences has led in taking a more active
role in advancing S&T. In December 1980, the
Northwestern Scientific Center was organized to
oversee the large R&D complex in Kiev. In January
1981 a republic party-government decree expanded
the coordinating role of all six scientific centers of the
Ukrainian Academy. The USSR Academy Presidium
in 1980, moreover, approved the effort of the
Ukraine's Western Scientific Center in Lvov to im-
prove regional S&T coordination and recommended it
as a model for its own scientific centers and affiliates
as well as for those of other republic academies.
Following Brezhnev's trip in March 1982 to Tashkent,
local party officials set up a Tashkent Scientific
Center within the Uzbek Academy. In 1983 the
Kazakh Academy established a new scientific center
in Karaganda.
While supporting the increasingly applied orientation
of the Academy, the trend toward regionalization also
represents further encroachment by the party and
industry on the Academy's institutional autonomy.
According to the Soviet press, party officials are
prominently involved in several regional scientific
centers, especially in the Ukraine and parts of the
RSFSR. In practice, these centers appear to function
as coordinating arms of their respective party commit-
tees as much as of their republic academies; local
party authorities are using them to propel S&T
development in their areas.
Combined Meetings or Science Summits
Besides internal reorganization of the three main
planning bodies-Gosplan, GKNT, and the Acade-
my-steps have been taken to strengthen their inter-
action with each other. These efforts have resulted in
meetings of the Gosplan Collegium together with the
GKNT Collegium and the Presidium of the USSR
Academy of Sciences, where major issues in S&T
policy and planning are addressed. According to a
Soviet economics journal, there were seven such sci-
ence summits between 1980 and 1982. At five confer-
ences, participants heard proposals from the USSR
Academy, the Siberian Department, the Urals and
the Far Eastern Scientific Centers, and the Ukrainian
Academy on which major scientific and technological
accomplishments should be introduced into produc-
tion. These meetings also helped define and amplify
the priority S&T programs that were listed in the
1981-85 Economic Plan and that were, for the first
time, formally approved by all three planning bodies.
A new round of S&T meetings, aimed at listing the
priorities for the 1986-90 plan, will probably be held
in 1985. According to the Soviet press, the GKNT,
Academy, and Gosplan already have given joint ap-
proval to some union republic 20-year programs for
S&T progress-the first stage in setting priorities.
These meetings of the planning bodies demonstrate
the higher priority and visibility accorded S&T issues
by the leadership. In addition, joint sittings seem to
provide:
? A means by which a unified scientific front can be
brought to bear on major S&T policy decisions.
? A major forum in which high party and government
officials can participate and endorse policy deci-
sions. For example, former Politburo member and
party Secretary Kirilenko, Premier Nikolay Tik-
honov, and party Secretary Vladimir Dolgikh, as
well as five deputy chairmen of the USSR Council
of Ministers, attended the 26 December 1980 sci-
ence summit.
? A means of bringing S&T issues directly into
Gosplan's highest councils and plan deliberations.
? A new and special channel whereby scientists can
advise on the introduction and use of S&T advances.
Such direct access to Gosplan officials and the
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planning process "opens up the possibility for an
outlet into the economy of the country as a whole,"
noted the head of the Academy's Siberian Depart-
ment. Previously, Academy scientists have had to
negotiate directly and separately with the ministries
regarding the use of S&T results.
Leadership actions to reorganize the S&T policy
establishment will help these organizations better
address problems in technology development and ap-
plication. At the same time, however, efforts to
change the attitudes within these institutions and to
restructure their external relations-developments
critical to achieve the leadership's goal-will neces-
sarily be a long-term and difficult process.
Reorganization of the S&T establishment alone will
not make science and technology an integral and
viable part of economic policy. Reorganization of the
vast network of R&D units at the base of the S&T
establishment is also required to put S&T applications
to practical use. Brezhnev at the 1981 party congress
called explicitly for "a certain regrouping of scientific
forces," emphasizing that the USSR could no longer
tolerate backward and inefficient research institutes
and design bureaus. Since the congress, GKNT and
Academy leaders have publicly urged-both in
speeches and publications-the need for better orga-
nization and structural changes that would concen-
trate resources on key problems, strengthen the ex-
perimental production base of science, raise scientific
productivity, improve the ties between science and
industry, and speed technological innovation.
R&D reorganization, however, has been a slow, uphill
battle against strong institutional resistance and se-
vere resource constraints. Under Andropov, intensi-
fied pressure was put on the scientific and economic
bureaucracies to move off dead center on this ques-
tion." Thus, Marchuk reported in the March 1983
" According to the Soviet press, the S&T Standing Commissions at
the USSR Supreme Soviet addressed the issue of R&D reorganiza-
tion in December of both 1982 and 1983; they strongly criticized
the GKNT and the ministries for bureaucratic foot-dragging and
for failing to implement the commissions' recommendations to
Kommunist that the GKNT had completed its survey
of the R&D structure of 42 ministries and agencies.
The following August, the joint party-government
decree on S&T reemphasized the need for new and
improved R&D institutions. As media commentary
indicates, however, the ministerial bureaucracy has
continued for the most part to delay or avoid the
GKNT's recommendations, organizational decisions,
and other major changes.'b
Despite the slow pace and limited scope of organiza-
tional reforms, recent press commentary and officials'
statements hint at the broad outline of the regrouping
of scientific forces under way. In general, reorganiza-
tion entails:
? Expanding the number of science and production
complexes, centers, and associations, within the
economic branch ministries, which link institutional
performers in the research-to-production process.
? Creating new structural frameworks to support the
development of interbranch science and technology
programs that require the cooperation of several
ministries.
? Increasing access to and joint use of facilities and
services across sectors on the basis of negotiated
settlements and shared interests. Academy scien-
tists, for example, are making greater use of the
experimental and pilot production bases of minis-
tries-including the defense industries-while the
latter are tapping the basic and applied research
capabilities of the Academy.
Economic Ministries
Within the ministries of various economic branches
emphasis is shifting to the creation of powerful scien-
tific and engineering centers that can ensure the rapid
" In October 1984, one of Marchuk's deputies, Mikhail Kruglov,
reported in a Soviet newspaper that the GKNT had recently
checked on progress toward R&D reorganization in 50 ministries
and agencies. He noted that ministerial decisions had been taken to
close down about 150 scientific organizations and to reorganize
60-still a very small part of the total ministerial S&T structure.
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development and wide-scale introduction of modern
resource-saving technologies. The formation of such
centers was endorsed in principle at a May 1981 high-
level meeting on machine building, held at the CPSU
Central Committee and attended by several represen-
tatives from the defense industries, according to the
Soviet press. The policy of developing centers has
been one of Marchuk's favorite themes. In a Septem-
ber 1982 Trud article, he noted that the GKNT,
jointly with the ministries, was "now organizing"
large S&T centers in almost all branches of the
economy.
Marchuk and other GKNT officials have been vague,
however, about the specific details of such organiza-
tions, and implementation has been slow. They em-
phasize that the centers should be integrated design
and development facilities, closely linked with produc-
tion. Structurally, they should include, in addition to
scientific research institutes and engineering design
bureaus, experimental test bases and production
plants capable of manufacturing unique equipment or
standard items in small batches. The giant Elektrosila
and Svetlana production complexes in the Ministry of
the Electrical Equipment Industry have been cited by
GKNT spokesmen as organizational models. The
label of new S&T center may be extended to already
existing organizations that have been variously called
science-technical associations (nauchno-tekhniches-
kiye obedineniya or NTOs) and production-technical
associations (proizvodstvenno-tekhnicheskiye obedin-
eniya or PTOs). PTOs focus primarily on innovation
and the assimilation of prototypes and are frequently
led by large design bureaus. NTOs have been particu-
larly prominent in the aviation industry
Efforts also are being made to expand the number and
to improve the operation of science and production
associations (nauchno-proizvodstvennyye obedineniya
or NPOs). These large complexes also concentrate
research, design engineering, and production subunits
under a single roof and serve as special nurseries for
innovation." Most existing NPOs, however, lack the
" Though NPOs began to be created on a nationwide basis by a
1973 party-government order, some ministries a decade later still
had not set them up or had done so only slowly and formally. The
number of NPOs has been frozen at about 250 since 1977. The
failure of ministries and central planning agencies to implement
changes in planning, financing, and management so these organiza-
tions can indeed operate as integrated structures has limited the
effectiveness of existing NPOs. Marchuk charged in Kommunist in
March 1983 that such a formal approach threatened "to discredit
capability for series production, and many do not have
even an experimental production facility within their
structure. In an April 1983 Izvestiya interview, Mar-
chuk noted that the regime saw an enlargement of the
network of NPOs as "the main way" of enhancing the
productivity of small, isolated institutes and design
bureaus and of overcoming the weak experimental
production base of most ministerial R&D organiza-
tions. The August 1983 S&T decree endorsed a policy
of expanding NPOs and mandated measures to im-
prove their planning and management.
In line with these plans, more sectorial research
institutes and design offices apparently will lose their
independence and be incorporated into large S&T
centers, NPOs, production associations, and plants-
and tied more directly to the production process.1e At
the same time, some new institutes and design bu-
reaus are being created by the ministries to tackle new
problems. The August S&T decree further orders all
major enterprises to add general designers to their
staffs to manage new technology development.
Academies of Sciences
Within the academy system, organizational efforts
focus on strengthening the Academy's traditionally
weak technology base, both to enhance academy
capabilities to conduct applied R&D and to raise
industry's interest and confidence in academy re-
search results. In general, organizational policy
stresses:
? Enlarging the Academy's own network of applied
research institutes and experimental design
facilities.
? Establishing joint laboratories, financed by specific
ministries but run by Academy authorities and
located either directly at academy institutes or
production enterprises.
"The Minister of the Machine Tool and Tool Building Industry,
for example, in January 1984, noted in a Soviet trade journal that
in response to the August decree nine institutes had been trans-
ferred to all-union production associations; eight design organiza-
tions had been attached to plants; three new NPOs had been
established; nine new special design bureaus at plants and seven
design bureaus had been organized; and 25 existing organizations
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? Utilizing production enterprises and experimental
plants for industrial verification of academy re-
search results and as pilot bases for introducing
academy-developed technology into the economy. A
laser laboratory at the giant Moscow Automotive
Plant (ZIL), for example, functions as a base labora-
tory for the Academy's Industrial Lasers Center.
Governmental authorities in the Ukraine and Belo-
russia have led in authorizing such facilities for
their republic academies.
? Creating large scientific research and design engi-
neering complexes at leading academy insitutes,
consisting of an institute, a design bureau, and an
experimental test shop. By 1982, according to Soviet
open sources, the Ukrainian and Belorussian acade-
mies each had eight such complexes in operation.
Similar complexes and centers also are being
formed in the Latvian and Uzbek academies.
? Creating science and production associations within
the framework of the academy system. Despite the
lack of formal authorizing legislation, several repub-
lics already have begun voluntarily to form such
associations linking academy organizations with in-
dustrial enterprises. According to the Soviet press,
Academy NPOs have been set up for advanced
electronics, computers, space technology, and pow-
der metallurgy. Soviet open sources also report that
defense industrial ministries have been key support-
ers of the formation of some associations.
? Returning to the USSR Academy of Sciences some
of the applied institutes it lost in the 1960s. For
example, the Institute of Electronic Control Ma-
chines, which was transferred to the Ministry of
Instrument Making, Automation Equipment, and
Control Systems in 1966, is being brought back into
the Academy to help build up its new Computer
Department.
Interbranch Organizations
The establishment of special interbranch organiza-
tions that focus on S&T developments that cut across
various branch ministries consitutes the third major
regrouping effort. Marchuk, in a January 1983 Ekon-
omicheskaya gazeta article, labeled the absence of
such bodies an"important "weakness" of the Soviet
S&T system. The predominantly branch structure and
management of Soviet S&T resources, prominent
Soviet scientists and science administrators empha-
size, no longer respond to the main problems of
science, technology, and the economy, which increas-
ingly transcend existing ministerial boundaries." F_
Organizational proposals and initiatives point largely
toward the development of three types of structures:
? Scientific research institutes similar to the Paton
Electric Welding Institute, which cut across minis-
terial lines and can conduct applied research, engi-
neering, and technology design.
? Interbranch NPOs and similar S&T centers that
promote collaboration of scientific, educational, and
production establishments in the development and
diffusion of key technologies.
? Temporary project teams, developed to solve long-
term complex S&T problems or to design new
equipment and technology. If successful, they may
be changed into NPOs. The August decree explicit-
ly calls for the creation of such ad hoc collectives,
and the USSR Council of Ministers in January
1984 adopted a resolution regulating their forma-
tion and operation.
Soviet open literature also indicates that considerable
controversy still exists over questions of the institu-
tional authority and bureaucratic subordination of
these interbranch structures. The press and special-
ized journals have published various proposals that
such organizations be created under the GKNT,
under Gosplan, or even directly under the USSR
Council of Ministers. For the moment, however, such
organizations are largely experimental. Few, in fact,
have been publicly identified. A science-production
association on powder metallurgy, directly subordi-
nate to the republic council of ministries, has been
functioning since 1980 in Belorussia. A deputy pre-
mier has been appointed to oversee the organization
of such interbranch S&T organizations.
19 On this general issue, see the articles by Professor G. Popov and
Academician Gvishiani in the December 1983 and April 1984
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CEMA Organizations
The Soviets also are calling for S&T organizational
changes among CEMA members to reduce depen-
dence on Western technology and to obtain greater
access to East European resources and capabilities.
Moscow particularly wants intra-Bloc structures that
will increase the level of collaboration and hasten
technological development in priority areas-agreed
to at the June 1984 CEMA Economic Summit-such
as advanced electronics, computers, biotechnology,
nuclear power engineering, and new materials tech-
nologies.
The Soviets have begun to advocate the creation of
powerful "international production and technological
complexes" in CEMA countries similar to those being
created in the USSR.
Academician Oleg Bogomolov, Director
o IEMSS and reportedly a close adviser to former
General Secretary Andropov, expressed similar views
in a May 1983 Kommunist article on CEMA strategy
for the 1980s. In the July 1984 Kommunist, Premier
Tikhonov raised the idea of setting up an intra-Bloc
center for robotics similar to the Joint Institute for
Nuclear Research in Dubna.
Moscow is also pressing to establish more "direct
links" between Soviet factories and their Bloc coun-
terparts. "Direct links" is a Soviet catchphrase for
shortcutting the economy's bureaucratic maze. Tradi-
tionally, factories had contacts with each other only
through the government ministries that ran them.
Foreign transactions, moreover, had to be channeled
through trade agencies. By letting plants work direct-
ly with technologically more advanced East European
firms, the Soviets apparently hope to foster modern-
ization, speed the infusion of new technology into the
economy, and circumvent the Foreign Trade Minis-
try's monopolistic control.
Some practical steps apparently have been taken to
promote these policy directions:
? The Politburo at its 7 June 1984 meeting, according
to Pravda, approved unspecified measures aimed at
greater technology sharing and coproduction within
CEMA. The Politburo reportedly again discussed
closer Bloc S&T cooperation at its September 1984
session.
? A decree of the Council of Ministers, also adopted
on 7 June and later made public, authorized new
factory-to-factory contacts with CEMA members
and Yugoslavia.
begun with Poland and the GDR.
? Provisions for direct links have been included in the
Soviets' long-term (to the year 2000) economic and
S&T accords with Poland and the GDR. At the
October 1984 Havana meeting of government heads
of CEMA nations, Premier Tikhonov publicly con-
firmed that factory-to-factory dealings had already
The civilian research-to-production cycle lacks an
effective incentive system. Limits on bonuses and
compensation for innovations appear at almost every
level for both individuals and organizations.20 Failure
20 For example, until recently, for any single invention the award
cannot exceed 20,000 rubles. The limit on the bonus paid to any
enterprise for any single production innovation is 200,000 rubles.
The total amount any enterprise can earn in innovation bonuses in
one year is limited to a certain percentage of its total wage bill. No
individual can receive a bonus for innovation in excess of 25 to 50
percent of his base salary. An additional and more restrictive limit
is that the sum of an individual's bonuses from the Innovation Fund
may not exceed 1,200 rubles a year. Furthermore, the sum of all
special bonuses a manager can receive may not exceed the equiva-
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to innovate does not generate strong penalties: enter-
prises that do not innovate are not economically
threatened nor do they become bankrupt. Just as a
ceiling limits rewards for innovation, a floor cushions
failure.
Following Brezhnev's death, Soviet leaders have taken
greater interest in the creation of economic conditions
and a psychological climate more conducive to inno-
vation. Andropov made this a central issue on the
economic agenda. At the November 1982 Central
Committee plenum, he strongly criticized the lack of
incentives for developing new technology and decried
the system whereby managers, though accountable
for the production plan, at worst are only scolded for
not meeting new technology goals. At the June 1983
plenum, Andropov again spoke out in favor of the
risk-taking innovative manager and against the con-
servative "who avoids innovation and loses nothing."
He reemphasized the need to devise a system of
incentives and sanctions that would turn managers
and workers, as well as scientists and designers, to
new technology and, at the same time, make "work in
the old way unprofitable." He made clear, moreover,
that failure to innovate should have "a direct and
inescapable impact" on the pay, job status, and
reputation of workers and executives.
As a result of Andropov's pressure, some partial and
cautious first steps have been taken to alter the
balance of risks and rewards that works against
innovation. In particular, the August 1983 S&T de-
cree mandates the expanded use of monetary rewards
to stimulate new technology and financial penalties to
root out old technology. The decree also orders
changes in pricing policy and in the system of quality
certification and technical standards to undergird the
new incentives and sanctions.
Better Rewards for New Technology
To better reward those who discover and/or introduce
new technology, the August 1983 decree authorizes:
? Payment of bonuses over and above the fixed maxi-
mum to managers, engineers, and other specialists
for developing and/or introducing new equipment,
processes, and materials that meet or exceed current
standards; and for increasing the share of new items
in the total product mix.
? Incentive price markups-up to 30 percent of
wholesale prices-for high-quality, new technology
products. Though not new, this measure has not
been extensively or effectively applied.
? Introduction, beginning in 1985, of lump-sum bonus-
es ranging from 3,000 to 40,000 rubles each, to
enterprises and individuals for creating and intro-
ducing new technology.
In addition, various experimental programs that offer
differentiated wages and special bonuses to boost
productivity and innovation are being tested. The
Council of Ministers in March 1983, for example,
approved an experiment to improve the pay structure
of designers and technologists in five Leningrad-based
production associations. This program seeks to height-
en cost consciousness and use of resource-saving
designs and computerized design systems. Basically, it
seeks to apply the "Shchekino model" to R&D by
encouraging managers to reduce staffs and use the
surplus wage funds to raise salaries and reward good
work among the remaining personnel. According to
the Soviet press, the enterprises taking part in this
experiment by late 1984 were reporting manpower
cuts of from 7 to 15 percent with wages going up by 8
to 10 percent.'
The Academy of Sciences is offering material incen-
tives to scientists who conduct more applied research
and improve productivity (see inset). At engineering
laboratories attached to selected Academy institutes,
for example, personnel can now earn extra pay-up to
30 percent of their wages-for meeting project goals
and doing applied research. the
2' The Shchekino chemical plant in 1967 first experimented with
meeting production plans with fewer workers. Since then, this
approach has been adopted in some 2,000 enterprises. Under the
Shchekino plan, enterprise managers are allowed to keep for
incentive purposes (for bonuses up to 50 percent of regular wages)
the wage fund savings obtained through meeting output plans with
unchanged or reduced labor force. For a number of technical
reasons (for example, frequent change in plans, experimenters
hindered by supply failures, conflicts with other in-force rules), the
Shchekino method has spread slowly and has had limited success.
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These limited experiments with new incentive
schemes only underscore the more general problem of
low salaries and morale among the members of the
S&T community. The Soviet press has carried sever-
al articles that note the comparative decline in scien-
tists'salaries since the mid-1960s, the increasing
difficulty of attracting youth to science, falling en-
rollment rates in engineering schools, and a shortage
of desi pers.
Soviet scientists in Moscow were openly com-
plaining in February 1983 about their low salaries
and professional restrictions on moonlighting to sup-
plement them. They frankly contrasted their incomes
to those of food store clerks or truckdrivers who,
because they can make extra money through black-
marketeering and other illicit activities, allegedly
"earn more than all but the upper ranks of scien-
tists. "
Issues of wages and productivity of scientists, in turn,
have sparked a broad debate in the Soviet press on
the system of remuneration in science. The ongoing
discussions make clear that much controversy and
confusion exists over what a scientist should be paid
for, how he should be paid, and how much he should
be paid. Still other Soviets stress that scientists are
not moved by economic incentives alone. Given the
complexity of the problems and the potential for
exacerbating social tensions and political conflict,
Soviet leaders are likely to proceed cautiously on
these issues.
Soviet press identify Velikhov as the major promoter
of this experimental program.
Meanwhile, the Soviet leadership reportedly is prepar-
ing additional measures to encourage innovation. C
in
February 1985 the Central Committee was consider-
ing changes that would allow plant managers who
introduce new production lines to drop older ones and
to have their initial output goals lowered to compen-
sate for the downtime necessary to install and learn to
use new equipment. The inflexibility of production
targets is the main reason Soviet industry has tradi-
tionally resisted technological change. The need for
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such incentives was probably addressed at the recent 9 X1
June CPSU conference on S&T policy.F___-] 25X1
Stiffer Penalties for Obsolete Technology
Alongside better rewards for successful innovation,
harsher penalties are being prepared against manag-
ers who fail to innovate. Underlying these measures is
increased public emphasis in Soviet journals that
incentives alone are inadequate to solve all the prob-
lems of technological modernization, that the intro-
duction of major scientific advances "has never been
and cannot be a pleasure" for enterprises, and that
policy without effective liabilities and sanctions is, to
cite Lenin, "a rattling of the air with empty sound."
Stiffer sanctions are particularly needed to accelerate
the diffusion of new technology rather than innova-
tion per se. In the Soviet system, new products simply
do not drive out old products the way they do in a
market economy. According to Pravda (16 July 1984),
85 percent of new inventions in the USSR are imple-
mented in only one or two plants, while little more
than 2 percent end up in more than five enterprises. In
the effort to broaden diffusion, the central planning
agencies are being strengthened to define and enforce
a stronger policy on obsolete production and technol-
ogy. The August 1983 S&T decree, for example,
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emphasizes stronger and broader application of mea-
sures that, although adopted some years ago, have
remained largely on paper:
? Price markdowns-up to 30 percent of wholesale
prices-for outdated industrial goods subject to
removal from production. Such discounting will now
result in a reduction of enterprise incentive funds.
? Tighter quality control to root out obsolete products.
Certification of industrial output will now be made
according to two categories of quality-superior and
first-rather than three as before. Articles not
certified in either category are now subject to
removal from production.
? All product grading to be done by state certification
commissions. Previously, they had awarded only the
highest category of quality-the state Seal of Quali-
ty-while the ministries themselves had classified
output as first and second categories.
? Managerial and enterprise bonuses for meeting
current production goals to be reduced by no less
than 25 percent for failure to fulfill S&T plan
targets.
These measures are not likely to sit well with the
Soviet managerial elite, who fear that the safety net
protecting them in the past from punishment for
noninnovative behavior could be threatened. Yet, the
new sanctions appear to have support in high places,
especially from Nikolay Ryzhkov, a former Gosplan
official whom Andropov brought into the Party Secre-
tariat in November 1982 reportedly to develop eco-
nomic reform options and to oversee strategic plan-
ning. Before his election as a CPSU Secretary,
Ryzhkov wrote articles highly critical of lagging
innovation, especially in the machine-building sector,
and accented the need for faster technological rear-
mament along with tighter quality controls."
" In an October 1981 Trud article, Ryzhkov noted that a joint
Gosplan-GKNT survey of 20,000 models of machinery found that
29 percent were obsolete. Over the period from 1970 to the end of
1980 the share of new machinery produced in the base and terminal
year fell from 4.3 to 2.5 percent, while the share of production of
10-year-old technology rose from 20 to 28 percent. Ryzhkov
reiterated the need for better standards and more independent
nondepartmental certification of product quality in an August 1982
Leadership efforts to speed the removal of old tech-
nology, especially through greater centralization and
coercion, however, are bound to encounter major
obstacles apart from ministerial resistance. Just as
they have trouble with the term "new technology,"
central planners face difficulties in defining "obsolete
products" and "outmoded technology." The dropping
of old products and processes must also be closely
coordinated with their replacement by new models
and methods. Otherwise, bad technology could give
way to no technology and create even more bottle-
necks and gaps. To date, the Soviets have demonstrat-
ed no better grasp in dealing with technological
obsolescence than they have with technological inno-
vation. Equally as important, the new incentives have
yet to remove the manager from responsibility for
meeting current production plans. This remains his
number-one success/failure criterion and is the basis
for determining bonuses. This performance standard
necessarily would make plant managers reluctant to
take production lines down to modernize and reequip
their factories.
Greater Managerial Autonomy
The economic managers' decisions to innovate are
strongly influenced by not only their interest in new
technology but also their capacity to innovate. Tradi-
tionally, economic managers-at the lower levels in
particular-have lacked adequate economic incen-
tives, appropriate machinery, and sufficient manage-
rial autonomy to make innovation successful and
profitable.
Recently, several Soviet S&T figures have publicly
voiced the need for greater economic decentralization
to promote innovation. Academician V. Trapeznikov,
Director of the Moscow Control Problems Institute
and a former GKNT deputy chairman, raised this
issue in a May 1982 Pravda article. In a December
1982 Trud article, Abel Aganbegyan, the reformist
economist, also called managerial autonomy the "ba-
sic question" of incentives. He said that enterprise
managers have the incentive to produce good
results-including innovation-only when the results
depend essentially on their own actions and cannot be
changed by "a simple telephone call" from Moscow or
by "an adjusted plan" handed down by a ministry.
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Three months later in the same newspaper, Oleg
Antonov, the noted aircraft designer, similarly called
for decentralizing measures to unleash the initiative of
lower level managers. Antonov urged changes in
planning "so that if the enterprise director wanted to
and could, he would-not reluctantly but joyfully-
introduce new technology without detriment to the
production process, the collective, and to himself
personally."
Subsequent to these calls for some economic decen-
tralization-voiced by Andropov himself at the No-
vember 1982 plenum-the Politburo in July 1983
approved an experimental program purportedly giving
enterprises in five industrial ministries more latitude
in using investment and wage funds, largely to spur
technological innovation. In September 1984 the Po-
litburo decided to expand the program-further em-
phasizing the acceleration of retooling and modern-
ization in key sectors. An additional five union
ministries-all machine-building ministries-and 15
republic ministries (mostly in light industry and con-
sumer services) joined the experiment on 1 January
1985. The Leningrad experience with new wage and
bonus systems for designers and engineers has
achieved some positive results and has become part of
the national experimental program (see "Better Re-
wards for New Technology" section).
So far, however, this experiment in enterprise autono-
my has had mixed results (or, as Gorbachev said at
the plenum, the results were "not at all bad but they
cannot provide complete satisfaction"). The Soviet
media has reported that some participating enter-
prises have indeed achieved some success in raising
labor productivity and in conserving material re-
sources. Yet public statements by local managers and
continuing Politburo criticism of the experiment's
shortcomings-also published in the press-generate
skepticism that it will produce significant economic
improvements or large-scale modernization
The problems of the experiment are twofold. First, it
faces the difficulties of previous piecemeal reforms
that are launched in selected areas or sectors before
general application throughout the country. Such an
approach has generally not been effective in accom-
plishing major structural change. On the contrary,
experiments tend to be absorbed by the system and
have little impact. Second, it simply does not address
directly serious problems endemic to the economic
system that result in inadequate incentives for manag-
ers to undertake the risk of adopting innovations or
new technology. Essentially, these consist of taut
planning, mandatory requirements to meet output
targets, and inflexibility in supply arrangements.
These and other rigidities cannot be viewed separately
from the system of centralized planning and control
that has spawned them. The experiment's limited
nature does not come to grips with central problems,
such as the role of the ministries vis-a-vis enterprises
and central planners or the reallocation of resources
within ministries to deal with weak and backward
enterprises. The experiment makes rather significant
demands on almost all the resources at an enterprise
manager's disposal without ensuring him the essential
external support necessary to enable him to meet his
own requirements. In short, this experiment, like
those that preceded, has failed to provide a combina-
tion of carrot ("moral" or "material" incentives) and
stick ("disciplinary" or "sanctions") measures to en-
courage successful decentralized decisionmaking.
Despite the emphasis on improved long-range plan-
ning, organizational restructuring, and better use of
incentives, the leadership also is relying on more
traditional methods of administration to elicit desired
behavior. Soviet leaders recognize that greater party
involvement is required to speed up the notoriously
slow and disjointed civilian innovation process and to
overcome the economy's technological backwardness.
The party apparatus is the traditional integrator of
activities that cut across organizational lines and is
now being called upon to push innovation and retool-
ing, mobilize resources, monitor priority programs,
break down ministerial barriers to technological mod-
ernization, and to secure better coordination among
research and production organizations involved in the
innovation process.
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While this involvement will help overcome secrecy
barriers, a capability that could facilitate the spillover
of technology from the defense sector into civilian
industries, it probably reflects the usual inclination to
maintain control as well as perhaps cynical recogni-
tion that S&T progress does not "happen by itself
but must be consciously pushed, directed, and con-
trolled. In this process, party organizations must
lead-not lag.
The party has always had these responsibilities in the
defense industry. Generally, a Central Committee
Secretary presides over the party's efforts.24 The
Central Committee's Defense Industry Department
provides direct oversight of the weapons acquisition
process and of all nine defense industrial ministries.
Chiefly through this department, the party supervises
a network of regional party defense industry depart-
ments that monitor and expedite defense industrial
activities throughout the USSR.
The Communist Party hierarchy, however, has not
been well suited to exercise a strong modernizing role
in nondefense industry. Typically, civilian S&T lacks
the sponsorship of the top party leadership and the
close party oversight, which are characteristics of
military R&D. Party oversight of the civilian innova-
tion process, moreover, is divided among several eco-
nomic and functional departments in the Central
Committee apparatus. The various economic branch
departments have generally been more interested in
current production than in new technology, while the
Science and Educational Institutions Department has
been more concerned with ideological conformity
among scientists than with practical results.
Organizational Changes
The perceived need for greater party involvement in
civilian S&T is forcing the party apparatus to make
organizational changes. Special coordinating councils
on S&T progress are being created directly under
various regional party committees and some union
republic party central committees. These councils,
21 The late Defense Minister Dimitriy Ustinov formally held this
party secretarial post from 1965 until 1976; during that time, he
presided over a massive Soviet military buildup and rapid modern-
ization of the defense industries. Former Leningrad party chief
Grigoriy Romanov has had responsibility for oversight of the
defense industry since his move to the Secretariat in 1983.
generally headed by a party secretary, serve as a
major channel through which the party's authority is
brought to bear on the scientific establishment and
managerial bureaucracy.
Central Party Apparatus. No major restructuring of
the CPSU Central Committee apparatus has been
undertaken-though Andropov reportedly considered
such sweeping organizational Chan es.
Republic Party Organizations. New party S&T coor-
dinating councils have recently been created in some
union republics. In May 1982 a Coordinating Council
was created under the Georgian Central Committee.
Georgian party chief and Politburo candidate member
Eduard Shevardnadze 25 heads the council, while oth-
er party secretaries and Central Committee depart-
ment chiefs or their deputies lead most of its sections
and working groups. The head of the Defense Indus-
try Department, for example, chairs the council's
working group on machine building; the head of the
Organizational Party Work Department directs the
working group on regional S&T organization. As
25 Shevardnadze has particularly pressed for an expanded party
S&T role. He told the May 1982 Georgian party plenum, "The
time has now come when the party organization and all Commu-
nists must make a decisive 180-degree turn toward the problems of
science and S&T progress." Later, in July 1983, speaking about the
significance of the May special plenum on science, Shevardnadze
told a republic science gathering, "The matters dealt with were not
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indicated by Georgian press reports, almost all Cen-
tral Committee departments are being drawn into the
workings of the Coordinating Council.
In October 1983, a Coordinating Council to oversee
S&T progress was set up under the Ukrainian Central
Committee with party chief and Politburo member
Vladimir Shcherbitskiy at its head.26 According to the
Soviet press, the task of the Coordinating Council is
to intensify party influence from top to bottom on the
implementation of S&T policy throughout the repub-
lic. In discharging this task, the Council will supervise
and coordinate the work of the S&T councils under all
regional party committees.
In April 1984, the Leningrad Regional Party Com-
mittee, which along with the Moscow City Party
Committee enjoys "union republic" status, altered the
structure of its Council for Economic and Social
Development. The obkom also added the phrase the
"Acceleration of S&T Progress" to the council's
name. Lev Zaykov, the party first secretary, was
named chairman of the new Council." In mid-April
this obkom council established a special subcouncil-
also headed by Zaykov-to oversee a massive comput-
erization program for the Leningrad region in the
next five-year plan. The CPSU Central Committee in
August 1984 endorsed the initiatives of the Leningrad
party organization for accelerating economic modern-
ization and called for a national seminar to popularize
the Leningrad experience to be held sometime in early
1985, according to the Soviet press.
36 Shcherbitskiy has been a consistent advocate of a strong party
S&T role. In his 1983 book, Scientific and Technical Progress: A
Party Concern, he speaks out against "falling into a sort of
euphoria by placing one's trust in some kind of automatic mecha-
nism for introducing innovation" and for "engaging fully all the
levers of party-political influence to speed up technological
change."
" Zaykov first ca a or these organizational changes in October
1983 at a special obkom plenum that met to discuss the significance
and implications of the joint party-government August S&T decree.
He explicitly tied these changes to the need to increase party
control, noting that "to strengthen further the party's influence on
the implementation of a unified S&T policy in the Leningrad area
and to improve coordination of the work among party committees,
the role of the Obkom Council for Economic and Social Develop-
ment should be augmented; the functions of the bureau for S&T
progress should be expanded; and its structure should be changed."
Regional Party Committees. Increased party involve-
ment with science and technology has been most
evident at the intermediate levels of the organization-
al hierarchy-in major oblast centers and republic
capitals. Here distinct government agencies with re-
sponsibility for coordinating S&T activities generally
do not exist. Thus, party committees have become the
driving force in recent years behind efforts to spur
innovation and secure more coordinated S&T strate-
gies within a given region. According to Soviet open
sources, the Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, and
Donetsk obkoms and Krasnoyarsk kraykom have led
in promoting development of long-range regional S&T
plans. The Moscow, Leningrad, Tomsk, L'vov, Kiev,
and Sverdlovsk obkoms have actively promoted the
use and closely monitor the course of provincial or
citywide target programs.
The use of coordinating councils or special commis-
sions to advise and assist party leaders on S&T
matters is also most widespread on the regional level.
Some party committees like the Novosibirsk and
Tomsk obkoms have reportedly utilized such bodies
for a decade or more, while other provincial party
authorities have only recently adopted this innovation.
In some large "science capitals," like Kiev or Novosi-
birsk, the councils on S&T progress enlist several
hundred scientific experts and have various sections
and working groups that tackle specific problems and
oversee individual projects.
These regional activities acquire national importance,
however, because of the heavy geographical concen-
tration of S&T resources and the key role of regional
centers in overall development strategy. These factors
also largely determine why and where party authori-
ties are expanding their involvement. Scientific re-
search and development in the USSR remain highly
concentrated in a few large industrial centers. Mos-
cow, Leningrad, and Kiev alone account for about 25
percent of all scientific organizations and about 40
percent of all expenditures on science in the USSR,
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according to open Soviet sources. Over 40 percent of
the nation's scientific organizations and 55 percent of
scientific expenditures are located in just 11 cities.28 If
we add to this group another 11 cities, then we
account for approximately 80 percent of the USSR's
S&T potential. Indeed, it is largely in these 22 key
science cities that party intervention and control
appear to have increased most markedly since the end
of the 1970s.29
Building a Cadres Policy To Support
Technological Advances
Since Brezhnev's death, the Politburo has taken sig-
nificant moves to reorient cadre policy to support
more rapid S&T advance. In his maiden speech as
party leader to the Central Committee plenum on 22
November 1982, Andropov stressed the importance of
putting more competent and dynamic people in pivot-
al jobs. Again, before a 15 August 1983 gathering of
party veterans, he emphasized that the party leader-
ship must prepare to transfer power to a younger
generation, telling his audience of septuagenarians
that "each new generation is in some way stronger
than the previous one, knows more, and sees farther."
Though Andropov had neither time nor muscle to
implement widesweeping personnel changes, he did
initiate the long-delayed process of cadre renewal and
succeeded in promoting talented party technocrats as
well as successful industrial managers and defense
industry specialists to some key party and government
positions (see insets: "Party Technocrats," "Industrial
Managers," and "Defense Industrial Managers" ).F-
Yegor Kuz'mich Ligachev
Age 64 ... recently elected full Politburo member ...
played major role in party personnel changes while
head of CPSU Organizational Party work depart-
ment ... was deputy chairman of S&T commission of
the Council of the Union of the USSR Supreme
Soviet (1979-84) ... longtime party manager-
headed Tomsk Obkom from 1965-83-and probably
client of former party secretary Kirilenko ... has
technical engineering degree ... in critical position to
make S& T a priority in party's personnel and organi-
zational policy.
Vadim Andreyevich Medvedev
Age 60 ... has been chief of the Science and
Educational Institutions Department since August
1983... was a deputy chief of the CPSU's Propagan-
da Department from 1971 to 1978 and then rector of
the party's Academy of Social Sciences until 1983.. .
worked with Politburo member Romanov in Lenin-
grad party apparatus in the late 1960's ... trained as
an economist ... likely to bring dynamic and
pragmatic approach to economic and societal issues.
Arkadiy Ivanovich Vol'skiy
Age 52 ... came to General Secretary's personal staff
under Andropov ... had been deputy chief of the
Machine-Building Department for 14 years ...
awarded a prize in 1971 for helping to automate
production ... trained as an engineer ... appointed
by Gorbachev in April 1985 to head CPSU Machine-
Building Department.
General Secretary Gorbachev has been particularly
involved with this effort. During Andropov's tenure,
z' These are Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Kharkov, Novosibirsk,
Sverdlovsk, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma Ata, Tbilisi, and Baku. (u)
19 The additional 11 cities are Donetsk, Gorki, Riga, Perm', Kazan,
Dnepropetrovsk, Rostov, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, and
Vladivostok. See Yu. Kanygin and B. Botvin, "Razmeshcheniye
issledovatel'skogo potentsiala," Voprosy ekonomiki, 5 (1979), pp.
43-44.
Soviet science is concentrated in fewer cities than is the
defense industry. Nearly two-thirds of more than 300 major defense
plants and shipyards are located in 25 of the largest industrial
cities; more than 100 are located in the 10 largest industrial cities.
Not surprisingly, there is considerable overlap in geographical
concentration: 13 of the top science cities also are among the 20
he took charge of the cadres portfolio in the Secretari-
at. He continued to oversee personnel matters after
Chernenko became party chief. In his speeches and
articles, Gorbachev has consistently stressed the im-
portance of professional ability and the need to sup-
port cadres skilled in achieving desired economic
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Nikolay Ivanovich Ryzhkov
Age 55 ... CPSU secretary and chief of Central
Committee Economics Department since November
1982... recently elected to full Politburo status ...
spent 25 years at the Urals Heavy Machine-Building
works in Sverdlovsk, serving as general director from
1971 to 1975... former party secretary Kirilenko
sponsored his move to Moscow ... was First Deputy
Minister of Heavy and Transport Machine Building
(1975-79) when he became First Deputy Chairman of
Gosplan in charge of heavy industry ... brought into
Secretariat by Andropov to help initiate economic
reform ... engineer by training ... believed to be well
suited for work under Gorbachev.
Nikolay Nikitovich Slyun'kov
Age 56 ... became First Secretary of Belorussia in
January 1983, at behest of Andropov ... had worked
in the Minsk Tractor Plant for 22 years including
seven years (1965-72) as director ... served two years
as First Secretary of the Minsk City Party Commit-
tee before becoming Gosplan deputy chairman re-
sponsible for the machine-building industry in
1974... trained as an engineer ... recognized as a
promoter of automation and computer technology.
Lev Nikolayevich Zaykov
Age 62 ... succeeded Romanov in June 1983 as
Leningrad party chief after having been mayor of
Leningrad since 1976... until his appointment as
mayor, he served in various capacities within the
defense industry including a stint as a general direc-
tor of an unspecified science and production associa-
tion ... during this period was also the head of
various secret facilities engaged in military-related
work ... is an electronics and computer specialist ...
also has a strong record of managerial performance.
Vyacheslav Vladimirovich Sychev
Age 51 ... became CEMA's Secretary General in
October 1983... previously supervised GKNT's De-
partment for S& T Cooperation with Socialist Coun-
tries ... logical position for him because of increased
policy emphasis on S&T development in Bloc
economies.
results. Having now assumed the top party post
himself, he is moving quickly on the cadre front,
advancing officials such as Ligachev and Ryzkhov,
who were brought in under Andropov, and stepping
up cadre turnover at lower levels.
The drive to spur S&T progress to achieve "intensive
growth" is a major effort that is gaining a long-term
commitment from the Politburo and bureaucratic
momentum. In the leadership's perception, the task of
technological modernization of the economy ranks in
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Sergey Sergeyevich Afanas 'yev
Age 66 ... assigned to be Minister of Heavy and
Transport Machine Building in April 1983 after
having been Minister of General Machine Building
... an engineer by training and a protege of
Ustinov ... the personnel shift, which is the first of its
kind in 26 years, is designed to reinvigorate this
industry ... ministry is vital to both civilian and
defense sectors and is one of leading ministries in
experiment begun under Andropov.
Georgiy Dmitriyevich Kolmogorov
Age 55 ... appointed Chairman of the USSR State
Committee for Standards in January 1984.. .
climbed managerial ladder to become First Deputy
Minister of the Communications Equipment Industry
in 1975... semiconductors specialist who won a state
prize in 1973 for developing new transistors ... a
Doctor of Technical Sciences, he brings considerable
technical and administrative experience to an organi-
zation that has been targeted to improve product
quality as well as technical standards throughout the
economy.
Genrikh Borisovich Stroganov
Age 53 ... named USSR Gosplan Deputy Chairman
in May 1984... previously a Deputy Minister of the
Aviation Industry in charge of scientific research ...
probably oversees machine building.
scope and importance with the industrialization of the
1930s. As Gorbachev emphasized in a 10 December
1984 speech to an ideology conference, "The process
of economic intensification must be made truly na-
tional in nature and given the same political ring as
industrialization of the country had in its time." `F_
Moscow's approach, however, is far from being a
coherent strategy and so far lacks the commitment of
resources and investment needed to carry it out.
30 Former Politburo member Kirilenko in his August 1981 Kom-
munist article on party S&T policy similarly insisted,"In terms of
its historical dimensions, significance, and consequences, the switch
to intensive development rightly ranks with the transformation of
Boris Vladimirovich Bal'mont
Age 57 ... became Minister of the Machine Tool and
Tool Building Industry in February 1981 ... was
First Deputy Minister of General Machine Building
... an engineer ... worked in defense industries for
almost 30 years before ministerial reassignment.
Anatoliy Antonovich Reut
Age 56 ... appointed Chairman of the Belorussian
Gosplan in February 1983... was the First Deputy
Minister of the Radio Industry and had been director
of a computer plant in Minsk.
Lev A lekseyevich Voronin
Age 57 ... Gosplan first deputy chairman since 1980
... now in charge of the expanding experiment in
enterprise autonomy ... previously spent many years
in defense industries ... served as First Deputy Min-
ister of Defense Industry before coming to Gosplan.
Aleksey Ivanovich Chubarenko
Age (unknown) ... became head of Gosplan's S& T
department after having served in the Ministry of the
Defense Industry.
Yuriy Dmitriyevich Maslyukov
Age 47 ... Gosplan first deputy chairman who was
Deputy Minister of the Defense Industry.
While various initiatives are under way, implementa-
tion is planned largely for the next five-year-plan
period. Even so, these initiatives constitute a challenge
to long-established attitudes, institutional relation-
ships, and expectations. Formidable political and bu-
reaucratic obstacles remain that could lead to a
revision or reversal of the present course. Indeed, if
the effort to use S&T to modernize the economy and
to generate strong resource efficiency gains is to
succeed, strong leadership from the top, increased
party involvement, and even greater use of adminis-
trative measure? will probably be required.
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Genrikh Strogano~
Figure 9. Senior Defense Managers Reassigned to Key Civilian
This effort to hasten the advance of S&T extends well
beyond R&D organizations and raises broad questions
of political, economic, and social change in the USSR.
Actions that the leadership has taken directly affect
the interests and tax the capabilities of key elite
groups and institutions. Moscow's intensified S&T
policy has implications for the internal evolution of
the Soviet system more generally, especially in:
? Leadership politics.
? Resource allocation.
? Economic reform.
? Interaction between the military and civilian indus-
trial sectors.
? Personnel policy.
? The role and restructuring of the CPSU.
? The role and acquisition of Western technology.
? Pressures and prospects for change.
Leadership Politics
Initially, Brezhnev-probably with help from Ustinov
and Kirilenko-began the drive for S&T moderniza-
tion in the late 1970s. His published speeches sketch
its general outlines, and he appears to have been taken
with the idea of curing the ills of the civilian economy
by patterning it on the defense sector." Andropov
gave further impetus to this approach, which also
coincided with his efforts to bring younger people into
the aging elite. He may have used the constituencies
of Ustinov and Kirilenko to help consolidate his
power. During his tenure, their proteges were primary
beneficiaries of the cadre changes and policy moves.
Moreover, the three newcomers promoted to the party
Secretariat under Andropov-Ryzhkov, Romanov,
and Ligachev-had backgrounds in S&T matters and
were strong advocates of economic modernization.
These efforts slowed under the more conservative
Chernenko but began to pick up new momentum
during his last months. At a Politburo meeting on 15
November 1984-attended by several regional party
leaders-Chernenko announced:
If we look at the problems of development of
science and technology from broader positions, the
" In a part of his memoirs devoted to Sputnik, written just before
his death and published in the January 1983 issue of Novyy Mir,
Brezhnev described the Soviet space program as an "organizational
prototype" for broader civilian application, and he lamented that
the leadership had not been demanding enough of civilian industrial
25X1
25X1
25X1
25X1
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state of affairs in this sphere arouses some con-
cern. Therefore, the Politburo deems it necessary
to discuss at a forthcoming plenum of the Central
Committee questions of speeding up S& T progress
and of improving its management in all links of the
economy. This plenum should be prepared in such
a way as to ensure that its decisions provide for a
radical change in this vitally important direction
of our development.
It is not certain what role the ailing Chernenko was
playing by this time in S&T policy.
The continuing leadership emphasis given to improv-
ing productivity of labor and plant and equipment,
despite the destabilizing impact of three successions in
less than three years, suggests that a consensus exists
within the Politburo on at least the broad contours of
how to make better use of science and technology in
improving the economy. This emphasis coincides with
the rise of modernizers apparently bent on overcoming
the USSR's technological backwardness and its lag-
ging economy. They seem to represent a coalition for
change that includes managers and technocrats from
the defense sector as well as from the machine-
building and heavy-industry lobbies of the civilian
sector. Although differences of views and interests
undoubtedly exist, the coalition is apparently held
together by the shared recognition that Soviet mili-
tary power rests ultimately on the general health of
the economy and that the future of both turn increas-
ingly on more rapid progress in achieving large pro-
ductivity gains.
Further progress in modernization will require firm
leadership and political will to overcome entrenched 25X1
this area.
institutional resistance. Far less grandiose economic
and management reform efforts under Brezhnev
failed, in part, because they were only partially
executed and the leadership lacked the resolve to
battle the bureaucracy and push them through. After
the two decades of the Brezhnev era, moreover,
bureaucratic obstacles are now more entrenched than
ever. Implementation of S&T modernization mea-
sures, which will not really begin in full until the
1986-90 period, will require a leader who is both
politically and physically much stronger than either
Andropov or Chernenko. Whether Gorbachev is up to
this task-and leadership test-remains to be seen,
although the early signals suggest he will push hard in
Thus, the execution of a visible S&T policy could
become a key issue in the consolidation of Gorba-
chev's power. It may become even more important if
the broad consensus that now exists on the importance
of S&T progress for economic growth breaks down
and disputes arise over how fast to push technological
change, at what cost, and by what methods." Even
32 Grigoriy Romanov, Gorbachev's rival in the recent succession,
has particularly insisted on more rapid advance. In public state-
ments, he has emphasized that the present revolution in S&T "is
fundamentally changing our ideas about the tempo of production
retooling. What used to take decades to accomplish must now be
done in years." Though he may have different views from Romanov
over tactics, Gorbachev, too, has taken a firm stand on the urgency
of accelerating S&T progress. In his discussion of S&T problems
last December, Gorbachev emphasized that "all of them must be
solved and solved without delay." Again, in his February 1985
election speech to the Russian Republic Supreme Soviet, he noted
that adopting a "wait and see" stance on this vital issue "means
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Gorbachev's Views on S&T Policy and
Progress (Excerpts From Speeches)
Paramount importance now attaches to the accelera-
tion of S&T progress and the fundamental improve-
ment of the quality and reliability of machines,
equipment, and all other items that are produced.
Without this, it is impossible to resolve the tasks of
raising labor productivity at the rates we need and of
scaling greater heights in the country's economic and
social progress.
of scientific achievements and technological innova-
tions. Here we can rely on the positive experience of
the work of science and production associations and
complexes and the development and implementation
of goal-oriented S&T programs. The spirit of competi-
tion in S&T creativity should be better used. Why, for
example, should we not use widely a competitive
system for the development of new products and new
types of equipment and technology?
The policy of intensification is dictated by objective
conditions and the entire course of the country's
development. There are no alternatives to this .... The
process of economic intensification must be made
truly national in nature and given the same political
ring as industrialization of the country had in its time.
Questions of accelerating S&T progress, as you know,
will be discussed at the next CPSU Central Commit-
tee plenum. The strategy of scientific and technical
progress itself is of top importance.... It is clear that
priority must be given to fundamentally new, truly
revolutionary decisions that can improve labor pro-
ductivity many times over. In other words, a profound
breakthrough is necessary in the many directions of
S&T progress and in increasing the efficiency of the
economy.
A substantial change in investment policy is required.
Today capital investment resources are most often
distributed to branches and regions, as they say,
"from the achieved base." As a result, the existing
industrial structure is retained for many years and
qualitative advances in its S&T level are held back.
This situation must be changed and changed decisive-
ly. Preference must be given to highly effective S&T
programs and to the development and introduction of
fundamentally new systems of machines and technol-
ogies.
It is necessary to improve organizational forms of
integrating science with production and to create
more effective economic incentives for the application
All this calls for a major restructuring of the cadre
training system.... The country has begun to
implement a reform of general education and profes-
sional schools.... During the course of this reform it
is necessary to take into account fully the needs of
S&T progress and in particular to ensure that young
people are computer literate.... The engineer is the
central figure of the S&T revolution. Today it is
especially important to improve substantially the
qualitative preparation of technical specialists and
ensure their correct utilization.
10 December 1984 Report to Ideology Conference
in Moscow
To increase the pace of S&T progress is an imperative
command of the times. This is a matter for all the
people. This task faces us in its full magnitude, and it
must be resolved everywhere, at all levels....
Adopting a "wait and see" stance means losing time,
and time is everything.
20 February 1985 Election Speech to the RSFSR
Supreme Soviet
We are faced with striving to achieve a decisive
turning point in switching the national economy onto
a path of intensive development. We must; we are
committed to move to the most advanced S&T posi-
tions in a short span of time and to a supreme world
level in productivity of social labor.
I I March 1985 Acceptance Speech as CPSU
General Secretary
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though Gorbachev is moving fast to consolidate his
control over people and policy-the promotions of
Ligachev and Ryzkhov have significantly strength-
ened his position in the leadership-longstanding
systemic obstacles to domestic innovation and to
major change in the economic system as well as
political and economic constraints on shifting substan-
tial resources toward investment will block rapid or
easy implementation of the modernization program.
The outcomes of leadership transition not only in the
Politburo but also in other parts of the Soviet power
structure will also affect the direction of S&T policy.
Much will depend on who succeeds Tikhonov as prime
minister, Aleksandrov in the Academy, Baybakov in
Gosplan, and other organizational leaders-all who
would be key bureaucratic players in accelerating
S&T advance. How willing and able the successors
are to assume the burdens of restructuring their
organizations and eliminating parochial institutional
thinking will help determine how successful leader-
ship efforts as a whole are likely to be. At the same
time, the choice of successors will also suggest Polit-
buro commitment to policy directions.
Resource Allocation
The scale of Moscow's S&T drive, to judge from
leadership rhetoric and the proliferating number of
S&T programs, will require substantial investment-
much more than the leadership has thus far commit-
ted or is probably willing and able to deliver over the
next several years.
It is possible that the leadership may already have
recognized that the historically low rate of capital
investment-originally set at less than 2 percent per
year-in the 1981-85 plan is inadequate to meet
rising needs for modernization. In fact, actual total
investment has increased by about 4 percent per year
on average during the 1981-84 period. If this pace
continues in 1985, then investment growth in the first
half of the decade would increase by 18 to 19 percent
compared with that of 1976-80, almost double the
originally planned growth of 10.5 percent. Nonethe-
less, even this growth has not brought either the
expected gains in productivity or renovation of exist-
ing capital stock. At the same time, the share of the
science budget allocated to priority S&T programs
seems to have grown only slightly, from 25 to perhaps
Given the necessarily long leadtimes involved, the
leaders will have to commit appropriate resources in
the 1986-90 plan if they want to have any reasonable
chance of achieving positive results in S&T modern-
ization in the 1990s. Members of the leadership have
repeatedly called for an acceleration of S&T progress,
which has direct implications for investment growth.
Gorbachev, in fact, made a strong pitch at the
December 1984 ideology conference-omitted from
the Pravda version of his speech-for a "substantial
change" in investment policy to hasten broader mod-
ernization.
More specifically, leadership statements suggest that
the Politburo has apparently reached a consensus to
support the investment demands of the Food and
Energy Programs (which will take, according to Sovi-
et data, about one-third and one-fifth, respectively, of
total investment in the 1986-90 plan) and to increase
investment in the machine-building and metalworking
(MBMW) sector-so critical to raising the technologi-
cal level of the economy as a whole. A summary of the
proceedings of a July 1984 Central Committee con-
ference on the five-year plan noted that the "faster
growth" of machine building was being given "great
attention." Gorbachev, in major speeches both before
and after becoming General Secretary, indicated that
investment in MBMW must be given preferential
treatment. He told the April 1985 party plenum that
it was necessary "to speed up by one and a half to two
times" the rates of growth in this sector during 1986-
90. He noted that the problem of retooling was
particularly acute because of the "considerable age"
of the country's productive apparatus and stressed
that "the prime concern" in the 12th Five-Year Plan
must be a substantial rise in the rate of replacing
obsolete equipment.
Gorbachev's ability to achieve such accelerated
growth-amounting to a 7.5- to 10-percent increase
per year-in machine building is doubtful in face of
the severe resource constraints confronting him. He
has given no hints as to where the resources will come
from. It also is uncertain that the increase in producer
durables that embody truly new productivity-
enhancing technology will be sufficient to halt the
30 percent.
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decline in capital productivity and revitalize the in-
creasingly obsolete industrial base. Stepping up pro-
duction of producer durables will leave less machine-
building capacity to produce military hardware and
consumer durables. A major shift to increase invest-
ment at the expense of defense or consumption, and
possibly both, is unlikely.
A leadership decision to boost investment, moreover,
would have some impact on GNP growth during
1986-90, but its principal effects would fall in the
1990s. New fixed investment is converted into capital
stock with a substantial lag, and the existing capital
stock is so large that increments in investment would
have to be huge to significantly boost its growth.
Thus, the leadership's possible hope for securing
major gains in capital and labor productivity through
the introduction of new technology will probably not
materialize until at least the 1990s, if then.
Economic Reform
Many Western specialists on the Soviet economy and
some Soviets believe that the present system's inflexi-
bility and centralized nature are major stumbling-
blocks to innovation and its implementation in pro-
duction. They contend that what is needed is greater
decentralization, private entrepreneurship, and the
injection of competitive market forces-the key trig-
gers to innovation in Western market economies. Yet
these alternatives are rarely emphasized by Soviet
political leaders, S&T experts, and economists, and
there are good reasons why the new Soviet leadership
is not yet ready to try more radical change (see inset).
Proposals now under consideration to streamline the
ministerial apparatus and to improve incentives would
not alter the basic structure of the Soviet command
economy.
The ministerial system-restored in 1965 and basical-
ly unchanged since then-may soon undergo major
alterations, including the formation of superministries
to oversee related branches or groups of ministries.
Central authorities would concentrate on the big
issues or strategic decisions (such as investment and
pricing), and enterprise managers and regional au-
thorities would make operational, daily decisions.
Soviet commentators emphasize that S&T develop-
ment is largely in the realm of strategic decisions and
requires S&T planning and management to be more,
Unlike Chernenko, who supported economic ortho-
doxy, Gorbachev has publicly assailed economists for
clinging to "dogmatic ideas" and has called for more
innovative thinking. He has criticized the timid ap-
proach taken in addressing critical problems in the
past, and he has argued that "profound changes" in
the entire economy require changes in the organiza-
tion of labor and production, planning, and incentives.
Although it is likely that Gorbachev will attempt to
encourage a fresh and flexible approach to economic
problem solving, he probably will not in the near term
be willing or able to seek radical restructuring of the
Soviet economic mechanism. He may first want to
wait and see if his more modest initiatives will
significantly improve the economy. In this regard,
Andropov's discipline campaign resulted in a discern-
ible boost in growth in 1983. More important, Gorba-
chev probably realizes that he must get his own
political house in order before addressing such con-
troversial issues as basic structural change.
not less, centralized. They criticize the ministries for
failing to carry out Moscow's S&T policies in the past
and stress that the plethora of new priority programs
to modernize the economy requires strong coordina-
tion and control by top officials in the ministries,
Council of Ministers, and Central Committee.
While a coherent and strong S&T strategy would
certainly need some central direction, a system of
introducing new technology on the basis of centralized
control is likely to yield only limited dividends. Cen-
tral direction can facilitate achievement of selected
technological improvements, but it cannot foster a
pervasive innovative spirit or comprehensive modern-
ization.
Improved incentives at the managerial and worker
levels to spur the introduction of new technologies are
also being discussed.
in late January 1985, additional incentives to acceler-
ate the introduction of new technology were on the
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work agenda for the conference on S&T. They include
incentives for enterprise managers to recruit younger
engineers and designers who have had the benefit of
recent academic training in the relevant disciplines.
Another measure aims at encouraging innovation by
alleviating the pressure on managers who introduce
new technology to fulfill previously established output
goals. This relief is to be achieved through more
flexible planning that can take into account the
considerable downtime of equipment and staff in-
volved in the development and installation of new
technology.
Such policies, however, probably will not be any more
effective than past tinkering with indicators designed
to induce managers to modernize and reequip their
shops. The chief yardstick for measuring managerial
and worker performance is still success in meeting
production targets. Moreover, even if it changed
managerial behavior, manipulation of success indica-
tors could lead to behavior contrary to Moscow's goals
and might have the unwanted result of too much
emphasis on promoting development of new technol-
ogy. Innovation for its own sake is no more sensible
than production for its own sake.
Military and Civilian Industrial Interaction
Rather than copy the capitalist or socialist market
economy as their model for technological advance, the
Soviets have apparently decided to use their own
military economy in which centralized program plan-
ning, organization and management, as well as strong
party direction are the norms. Their approach to S&T
is to build priority programs along with special mana-
gement/monitoring mechanisms to protect and imple-
ment them much as has been done in the defense
sector (see appendix B).
It seems likely that the Soviets will be frustrated in
this effort; they will be unable to successfully transfer
the higher quality performance of the military to
civilian objectives. The major obstacle is that the
priority status now accorded the military sector-
whether it be the lavish use of materials, the assign-
ment of competent, experienced managers, or the
attentive supervision of high-level government and
party officials-cannot realistically be extended to the
whole economy.
The leadership is trying to enlarge the list of national
priorities, traditionally made up mainly of major
defense programs, to accommodate major civilian
programs. These-for example, the long-term food
and energy programs-are designed to solve key
economic and social problems that have been deliber-
ately neglected by past leaderships, largely due to the
cost of the large defense burden. Not everything,
however, can be made a priority. To command the
necessary resources and high-level attention, the num-
ber of programs must be strictly limited; otherwise,
uncontrolled proliferation of programs, each with high
supply priority and explicit backing from political
leaders, would seriously distort over the long run the
whole structure of the economy. More important,
greater priority for civilian programs-even those
which may have some long-range benefit to weapon
system development-increases the competition for
scarce resources, potentially squeezing military indus-
try programs and threatening low-priority civilian
programs.
In any case, major shifts in resource allocation policy
are unlikely. Significant and fundamental changes
would pose a challenge to the entrenched power of the
Ministry of Defense and the defense industries. These
institutions are in a strong position to protect their
interests. The Soviet policy planning process is resis-
tant to major alterations in priorities, and existing
military programs have strong inertial momentum.
Lower priority civilian programs, thus, will probably
pay the price.
Beyond the issue of resource allocation, promoting the
defense industry model is also not likely to bring to
the economy large gains in productivity, efficiency, or
innovation-key goals of economic modernization.
Although military output has been high in numbers of
new weapon systems, improved effectiveness, and
increased capabilities, on balance, productivity in
both civilian and military R&D has been notably
poor. The defense sector's reputation for quality and
efficiency has
been achieved at a substantial resource cost.
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The defense industry sector, moreover, has not been
that successful at technological innovation. Defense
scientists and engineers have shown themselves to be
innovative in using available technology to design
effective weapons, but not as innovative as their
Western counterparts in making technological break-
throughs. While the military R&D system is well
adapted for managing high-priority weapon programs,
it is not well adapted for encouraging and exploiting
small-scale, incremental technological advances that
collectively and cumulatively can have a major impact
on low-priority weapon programs. In addition, Soviet
defense industry continues to have serious deficiencies
in such key areas of military technology as the design,
manufacture, and quality control of microelectronics
and computer technology
Despite these limitations, the defense industries are
better manned than the civilian industries, and the
transfer of some officials to the civilian economy
probably will have a public impact. At the same time,
this transfer will probably not have a significant
adverse impact on military R&D programs or defense
industry activities. Indeed, the reassignment of these
experienced executives suggests that the Soviet lead-
ership is confident that suitable replacements can be
found from among their subordinates without any
detriment to the military-industrial complex, and that
its managerial wealth can be used to shore up lagging
sectors of the national economy.
Greater defense industry and civilian economy inter-
action, moreover, could help weapon system develop-
ment. To be sure, current efforts to accelerate intro-
duction of the latest manufacturing technologies,
materials, and processes in civilian ministries involved
in defense production could have a disrupting effect
on production operations in the near term. Intensified
RDT&E under way in the defense industries since the
mid-1970s appears to have been a factor behind the
slowdown in military hardware procurement after
1976. These short-term disruptions, however, are
probably viewed by Moscow as more than offset by
the hoped-for, long-term improvements in capabilities
to design, fabricate, and manufacture more sophisti-
cated weapon systems in the 1990s and even possibly
in the second half of the 1980s that will result from
increased priority for civilian S&T programs.
Remaking the Government and Party Elites
After nearly 20 years of unprecedented stability, the
Soviet bureaucratic elite is undergoing significant
change. Andropov initiated the belated process of
rejuvenation of both the party and government bu-
reaucracies. At the top of both hierarchies, men in
their fifties and early sixties have begun to replace
those in their seventies. Many of these new men are
better educated and more familiar with high-
technology requirements and options than their prede-
cessors, have been strong public advocates of im-
proved industrial efficiency through the use of ad-
vanced management techniques and automation 25X1
technologies, and appear to be resourceful, pragmatic,
and confident leaders.
More extensive personnel changes are needed, howev-
er, before an appreciable impact is made on the actual
workings of the administrative machinery. Andropov's
changes were due to deaths, "honorable retirements,"
and internal transfers. Only a few dismissals were due
to corruption or ineffectiveness. This generally per-
functory handling of cadre changes, however, is prob-
ably insufficient and too slow to dislodge the bureau-
cratic deadwood and recalcitrant elements opposing
technological change.
Bringing better trained managers and technocrats
into leadership positions at all levels is essential to
ensure implementation of current S&T policy initia- 25X1
tives. In the end, the success of these initiatives hinges
substantially on the speed and extent to which Gorba-
chev and other party leaders can overhaul the bureau-
cracies. Rejuvenation of the elite, in turn, will almost
certainly become closely entangled with the course of
Gorbachev's consolidation of his authority and power.
All previous party leaders have solidified their posi-
tions and gained control of institutional power bases
by expanding their influence in selection of cadres.
Controversy over cadre selection is built into Soviet
politics, and its possible link to an ambitious S&T
policy as the impetus for modernization of the civilian
economy will make it even more controversial. The
issue of technocratic expertise versus political, or
ideological, control-the longstanding issue of the
Reds versus the Experts-will probably be especially 25X1
contentious as will debate over the pace and methods
of personnel changes.
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The leadership will find the policy of advancing
technocrats difficult. Some Soviets have reported
rumors of considerable bureaucratic and popular re-
sistance to reforms that would base personnel selec-
tion on merit. In February 1983, a party insider told
US Embassy officials in Moscow that Chernenko's
warning in a fall 1981 Kommunist article that the
party's failure to consider the interests of all social
groups could lead to political, social, and economic
crisis was aimed at Kirilenko's advocacy of appoint-
ment of industrial technocrats to high party posts-
the approach subsequently taken by Andropov~___
Despite opposition to strengthening technocratic and
managerial influences in the Soviet governing elites,
Gorbachev is likely to overcome this resistance. The
pace of personnel change has been stepped up. He
appears intent on bringing in a more modern techno-
cratic elite into management positions. Competence
and performance now are likely to be more important
in personnel turnovers and career advancement. Old-
style managers are not likely to fare well in this
environment and will probably be quickly pushed
aside.
The Party's Role in Managing the Economy
Moscow's intensified S&T policy course has led to
increased party involvement in management of the
economy. This development-the traditional way for
promoting technological innovation-has been
prompted by the party's need to maintain its leading
role in society and to strengthen control over science
and technology.
The party fills a functional and institutional void
created by the leadership's failure to build effective
coordinating mechanisms and incentives in the gov-
ernmental and R&D structures to facilitate innova-
tion. The party is the "disinterested" adjudicator of
bureaucratic conflict in the ministerial hierarchy, and
it also best reflects central objectives. Sporadic inter-
vention by political leaders continues to be vital to the
promotion of technological change, as it has been in
The issue of the party's role in the economy is being
debated within the Soviet leadership. Before Brezh-
nev's death, Chernenko and Kirilenko publicly dis-
agreed on this issue. In an August 1981 Kommunist
article entitled "The Party's Unified S&T Policy,"
Kirilenko stressed the need for the party to play an
active role in S&T, while Chernenko in the following
issue pressed for reduced party involvement in the
daily operation of the economic bureaucracy. Cher-
nenko, in his maiden speech as General Secretary to
the February 1984 Central Committee plenum and in
a speech to a meeting of party apparatus workers at
the Central Committee in March, emphasized these
points. Growing party involvement in economic man-
agement and displacement of economic officials by
party functionaries, he said, diverts the latter from
attending to other important party tasks, such as
social policy and ideological indoctrination, and also
subverts responsibility of economic managers and
government administrators, who frequently pass the
burdens of their official duties to party committees.
Resolution of this debate has practical implications
for internal party reform. An expanded party role in
spearheading technological change would probably
require some restructuring of party organization,
changing work methods, and upgrading of cadre
skills. Major segments of the party bureaucracy prob-
ably oppose such changes, including the added respon-
sibilities of an enhanced S&T role. Most of the
regional party apparatus (almost 85 percent) have
little experience in S&T, would be largely cut out of
it, and probably would lose influence. Only the party
organizations in those 22 cities that oversee 80 per-
cent of the USSR's R&D resources (some 13 percent
of the regional apparatus) would probably gain influ-
ence.
A suggested restructuring of the Central Committee,
reportedly aimed at making it "an engine change,"
apparently met strong resistance from central party
workers in the early months of Andropov's leadership.
Internal party changes as a result have been largely
ad hoc arrangements and half measures. The S&T
coordinating councils and commissions that have
the past.
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sprouted up under many party committees still appear
to be weak tools for overcoming impediments to
technological change. Any major reorganization of
the party directed at making it a force for technologi-
cal change, rather than an obstacle, could be pushed
through only by a general secretary who is firmly
committed both to faster technological progress and
to an expanded role for the party in modernizing the
economy.
Any attempt to involve the party apparatus more fully
in a more rapid modernization of the economy, more-
over, would have a significant impact on other parts of
the institutional power structure. Power relations be-
tween the party and governmental bureaucracies have
been essentially frozen for the last 20 years, following
the period of Khrushchev's continual reorganizations
of party and government and the party's more direct
management of the economy. Any expansion in the
party's role in S&T policy, therefore, will probably
involve-indeed require-some shift in the bureau-
cratic balance, greater power for the party apparatus
than that of the governmental machine, and, conse-
quently, reconfiguration of the political leadership.F-
Gorbachev has not addressed these issues directly. He
is, nonetheless, a champion of more rapid technologi-
cal progress and the thrust of his personnel policies
reflects a definite bias for technocratic expertise.
These factors strongly suggest that he will increase
party involvement in S&T and consider changes in the
party's traditional management approach to such
problems.
Foreign Trade and Technology Transfer
Moscow could stimulate its modernization program
by stepping up imports of foreign technology. The
USSR has imported Western plant and equipment to
help ease bottlenecks, raise efficiency, and modernize
its economy. Machinery imported from both Commu-
nist and non-Communist countries is a substantial
part of the equipment portion of total Soviet invest-
ment-about one-third. As noted earlier, the 1981-85
Five-Year Plan also allocated almost as much (30
billion rubles) for foreign technology to support the
170 national S&T programs as was spent (37 billion
rubles) on the programs' domestic RDT&E and con-
struction costs.
However, economic realities as well as basic changes
in Soviet economic perceptions and attitudes will
probably constrain any steep rise in trade and acquisi-
tion of foreign technology:
? The USSR's hard currency import capacity will be
limited by declining oil exports and lower world oil
prices. Unless its cautious borrowing policy is re-
vised, constraints on hard currency could well force
the USSR to reduce imports of advanced machinery
and equipment from the West at least through
1990. In fact, the Soviets have been scaling down
their orders for Western technology since 1980.
? Since the mid-1970s, the Soviets' disappointment
with the contribution of Western technology to the
growth of industrial productivity has cooled their
enthusiasm for increased trade and technology
transfer. The expected growth did not materialize,
partly because use of legally acquired Western
technology in the civilian economy has been notably
inefficient. Moreover, imported technology some-
times falls prey to the same obstacles and long
1leadtimes as indigenous technology.
? The Soviets have become concerned about the cost
of technological dependence on the West. Western
trade sanctions and technology bans, imposed after
the Soviets' invasion of Afghanistan, exposed the
USSR's vulnerability to such ressure.
Sovi-
et political and scientific leaders recognize that
excessive reliance on Western technology retards
domestic technological progress. It diverts resources
that could be channeled into indigenous innovation
capabilities and reinforces the USSR's technologi-
cal inferiority to and dependence on the West."
" The Soviets' enhanced concern about technological dependence,
as well as a desire for greater self-sufficiency and parity, extends to
key strategic areas, such as computer technology.
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Partly in response to Western sanctions and changes
in Soviet perceptions of the costs and benefits of
Western technology, Moscow is trying to get more
and better technology from its East European allies.
Given their strained economic situation, however, it is
unlikely that they could significantly boost their
technology sales to the USSR soon. East European
exports in 1983 already accounted for roughly one-
fourth of total Soviet investment in machinery and
equipment. Besides, much of this equipment is an
inferior substitute for that produced in the West.F_
More generally, too, the Soviets are pressuring the
East European countries to boost technological mod-
ernization and to broaden exchange of S&T, especial-
ly in the strategically important fields of electronics,
energy, biotechnology, and machine building. The
Soviets believe faster technological progress is vital to
the future development of CEMA economies; this is
the motivation for their renewed efforts to strengthen
the Bloc's economic integration and political cohesion.
However, longstanding and major political, economic,
and technological impediments will constrain the pace
and scope of these Bloc-wide efforts.
Pressures and Prospects for Change
For the most part, recent S&T policy measures are
neither new nor radical but represent a continuation
or intensification of earlier efforts. They have evolved
gradually and essentially maintain both the existing
party power structure and the overall centralization of
the Soviet system. This evolution seems to make an
S&T-intensive economic strategy politically and ideo-
logically acceptable to the ruling Soviet elite and
probably accounts for the momentum that is building
behind it.
This mounting momentum, however, may also in-
crease pressure for further changes in direction that
the leadership would probably want to avoid. To be
effective, evolving S&T initiatives seem to require
more extensive changes in the structure and staff of
the party apparatus, in general party membership and
recruitment policy, in the distribution of influence and
power within the party, and in the party's external
relations with other parts of the power structure. S&T
policy also requires movement toward reducing plan
directives for production units, freeing prices, basing
incentives on profits, and changes in the organization
and operation of the economic ministries-steps the
Soviet leadership has so far been unwilling to make.
The obstacles blocking rapid or easy advance are
formidable. Not only must the latest science and
technology be mastered, but also long-lived cultural
conditioning, attitudes, and relationships must be
changed. Even more important, the rigidities inherent
in the present economic system will provide formida-
ble barriers to any initiatives to accelerate progress in
either diffusion of new technology or in encouraging
innovation. Nonetheless, if the commitment can be
sustained and the will acquired to implement the new
S&T policy, the incremental progress of the past in
furthering economic growth and military prowess will
probably be sustained.
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Appendix A
Science and Technology Target
Programs in the 1981-85 Five-Year Plan a
Power Engineering and Electrical Engineering
1. Development of the unified electric power system.
2. New types of equipment for producing electric and
thermal power (500,000- and 800,000-kW units for
thermal power plants, 150,000- to 200,000-kW gas
turbines and 250,000-kW gas plants, 500,000-kW
magnetohydrodynamic [MHD] gas power units and
work on solid fuel, 1-million-kW MHD power unit).
3. Development of long-distance, high-power trans-
mission lines (1,500 kV dc and 1,150 kV ac lines).
4. Fast breeder reactors and thermal neutron reactors
for both heating and power.
Energy and Geology
5. Synthetic liquid fuels from coal.
6. Gas pipelines with pressures of 100 to 120 atmos-
pheres and multilayer pipe of 1.42 millimeters in
diameter.
7. New geophysical and geothermal means for search- 22. Automation of scientific research and computer-
ing and surveying deep-lying mineral deposits. ized design.
8. New oil recovery techniques to increase yields of
strata by 55 percent to 60 percent.
9. Open-pit coal mining to exploit Kansk-Achinsk
Coal Basin.
10. Development of oil and gas deposits of the conti-
nental shelf.
Chemistry and Petrochemistry
11. Biotechnology and genetic engineering.
12. New synthetic materials based on new methods of
processing flexible chain polymers.
13. New processes for producing low-tonnage chemi-
cal products.
16. Anticorrosion protection program (new lacquers,
coverings, and new methods of electrochemical
protection).
Metallurgy
17. Powder metallurgy.
Machine Building and Metalworking
18. Robotics.
Timber, Wood-Processing, and Paper
and Woodpulp Industry
20. Mechanization of labor processes in timber cut-
ting and wood processing (fiberboard and wood
chip technology).
Computer Technology and Communications
21. Computerized management information systems.
Agriculture and Land Reclamation
25. Sugar beet technology.
27. Production processes for high-quality food
products.
28. Modern means of livestock raising.
29. New varieties of grain.
30. New kinds of rice.
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Transportation
32. New forms of transport (containerized transport,
pneumatic pipelines, and so forth).
Construction
33. Progressive technology and industrial methods for
new construction materials.
Miscellaneous
34. Plasma technology.
35. Special machinery for harsh northern conditions.
36. Modern materials-handling technology.
37. Three-dimensional seismic surveying for detecting
and forecasting earthquakes.
a This list includes 37 of the 41 S&T target programs in the plan. It
has been compiled on the basis of individual programs identified
from open Soviet sources.
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Appendix B
The Soviet Defense Industrial Sector:
Keys to Its Technological Success
Specific features of the Soviet military-industrial
complex help overcome obstacles to innovation that
are endemic to the economy and contribute to its
demonstrated technological success. On balance,
these features have been most effective for managing
high-priority weapons development programs, but
they often hinder performance in other areas. F_
High Priority
The military R&D establishment has profited greatly
from the high priority Kremlin leaders have always
placed on defense and their conviction that technology
must be harnessed to build Soviet military power. As
a result of this priority, defense R&D facilities can
attract the most qualified technical and managerial
talent, are assigned the best equipment and high-
quality components, and are assured of continuing
financial and material support. About one-half of all
Soviet R&D expenditures and about one-fourth of
Soviet defense expenditures-since 1960 the fastest
growing category of defense spending-go for mili-
tary R&D. Moreover, this priority system is supported
by an institutional structure and decisionmaking pro-
cess that both facilitate the imposition of military
priorities and obstruct external encroachment by non-
military groups in the policy process and competition
for resources.
Strong Centralized Management
Military R&D programs are expedited by high-level
monitoring and strong central management. At the
top of this oversight structure are special institutions
with no civil economic counterparts-the Defense
Council and the Military-Industrial Commission
(VPK). While Communist Party leadership elements,
headed by the Politburo, actually authorize the key
military R&D and weapon programs, it is in the
Defense Council (composed of the top party, military,
and government officials with national security re-
sponsibilities) that many of the most important deci-
sions on major programs and policy directions are
made.
The VPK of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers
consists of the top executives of the Soviet defense
industries and a supporting staff. The VPK coordi-
nates the work of the nine defense industrial minis-
tries (Aviation, General Machine Building, Defense,
Shipbuilding, Radio, Medium Machine Building, Ma-
chine Building, Electronics, and Communications
Equipment) and also closely monitors weapon pro-
grams, enforces schedules, and ensures that technical
and performance specifications are met. Both in its
planning activities and its day-to-day functions, the
VPK serves to eliminate or circumvent the inefficien-
cies characteristic of the Soviet economy.
Communist Party Oversight and Sponsorship
The entire weapons acquisition process is also subject
to direct oversight by the party leadership. The
Politburo is the ultimate authority for national securi-
ty decisions and final arbiter of all policy issues. The
party general secretary chairs the Defense Council.
The Central Committee's Secretariat provides party
oversight of the weapons acquisition process. This
responsibility, which includes overseeing the work of
the VPK, has usually been exercised by a Central
Committee secretary for defense affairs-the post
held by Brezhnev in the late 1950s and early 1960s
and by Ustinov from 1965 to 1976. The Defense
Industry Department, which performs as a staff organ
of the Central Committee, participates in party over-
sight of military R&D. The department supervises a
network of regional party defense industry depart-
ments that monitor and expedite defense industrial
activities throughout the USSR.
The Soviets, through this oversight structure, attempt
to make the weapons acquisition process responsive to
high-level policymakers. Party leaders sometimes di-
rectly intervene to overcome bureaucratic obstacles
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and technological conservatism in the armed forces
and the defense industries. They have been willing
and able, at times, to use their power to impose
innovation priorities, to marshal resources, and to get
things done. In this way, they can serve as major
forces for change.
The Military as a Powerful Customer
The Ministry of Defense, the primary customer of
defense industry, is involved in all stages of the arms
acquisition process, from requirements generation to
overseeing the manufacture and certification of new
weapons. Through its General Staff, the deputy min-
ister of defense for armaments, and the technical
directorates of the services-which have on-site mili-
tary inspectors at weapons design and production
facilities-the Ministry of Defense wields a vigorous
consumer-monitoring apparatus. The direct associa-
tion of consumer with industry provides a quality
control and feedback mechanism lacking in the civil-
ian economy and is a principal factor in the better
performance of Soviet defense industry.
The opportunities for military leadership review-like
those for party oversight-of military R&D programs
occur at several key points in the research-to-produc-
tion cycle. This review process allows the Ministry of
Defense consumer-like top party leaders-to shape
the output of the weapons acquisition process. Both
military and party leaders press and make demands
on the defense industries, and together they exert a
strong force for innovation.
Foreign Technology Acquisition
Military competition with the West also puts pressure
on the Soviet armed forces, and, through them, on the
defense industries to produce advanced weapons and
equipment. The Soviets often use Western counter-
parts as points of reference for their systems and
technologies. They give the highest priority to obtain-
ing and exploiting those Western technologies with
military applications. The acquisitions are used in the
development of new weapon systems and in improving
existing military capabilities. The aggressive acquisi-
tion and use of Western technology is one of the most
important reasons why technological progress is more
rapid in the defense industries than in civilian indus-
try.
Secrecy
Secrecy is inherent in the operation of Soviet military
R&D. Extreme secrecy exacts a price; it inhibits the
flow of needed information and ideas among people
and organizations, thereby impairing program effi-
ciency and stifling initiative. However, secrecy helps
to buttress the priority of military R&D by preventing
criticism of defense industry efficiency and by fending
off claims of civilian industry for scarce resources.
Thus, secrecy reinforces the highly centralized and
relatively closed system of military decision making.
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Appendix C
Excerpts From General Secretary
Gorbachev's Report to the June 1985
CPSU Conference on S&T Progress
A conference on "Questions of Accelerating
Scientific-Technical Progress" was held at the CPSU
Central Committee on 11-12 June 1985. (General
Secretary Gorbachev had announced the leadership's
plans for such a conference at the April party ple-
num.) In his report to the conference, entitled "The
Fundamental Issue of the Party's Economic Policy,"
Gorbachev touched on practically all the major
themes dominating recent Soviet S&T policy discus-
sions and directions. In general, he criticized the slow
pace of implementation of leadership decisions in this
sphere, sought to give new impetus to the S&T drive,
and emphasized the necessity and urgency of action.
Below are excerpts from his conference report.
The party views the acceleration of S&T progress as the
main direction of its economic strategy, as the main lever
for the intensification of the national economy and for
raising its efficiency, and hence for the solution of all
other economic and social issues.
The Politburo decision to hold the present conference on
the threshold of the 27th CPSU Congress was brought
about precisely by this task. Problems of accelerating
S&T progress must be placed at the center of the pre-
Congress election campaign, of the whole of the party's
political, organizational, and educational work. The at-
tention ... of the whole people must be fixed on this.
For many years there has been talk of shifting the center
of gravity to intensive factors of economic growth, but
the measures adopted were half measures, inconsistent
measures, and not fully implemented. And, thanks to
inertia, the economy continued to develop mostly on an
extensive basis.
The 12th (1986-90) Five-Year Plan
First and foremost, the guidelines for the economic and
social development of the country in the 12th Five-Year
Plan and up to the year 2000 must contain fresh
approaches that provide a sharp turn toward intensifica-
tion and the energetic pursuit of S&T progress.
The Politburo recently discussed the draft guidelines
... serious criticisms were expressed that require revision
of the draft. It has not yet been possible to include in it
measures providing for the transfer to a course of chiefly
intensive growth for a number of industries, to deepen
the structural rebuilding of the economy, to attain the
necessary concentration of capital investments in the
priority areas....
Before us lies the implementation of the new technologi-
cal reconstruction of the national economy.... The reso-
lution of this problem is an urgent matter, an all-party
and nationwide matter, and this must be done in a very
brief period of history.
For a long time, many enterprises were not refitted with
technical equipment and were not modernized. All that
happened was that everything possible was squeezed out
of them, as they say.
The capital repair sector has become inordinately swol-
len as a result of the aging of production equipment. Last
year 35 billion rubles was spent for this. A quarter of the
country's pool of machine tools and 6 million workers are
employed in repair workshops.... All this costs society
too much.
A long-term program for the technical reconstruction of
every enterprise and industry must be outlined.
Figuratively speaking, we, too, must harness S&T prog-
ress. There is simply no other way.... We have funda-
mentally exhausted extensive methods of development.
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In the immediate future, the share of withdrawal of fixed
capital ... must be doubled.... This will make it possi-
ble by the end of the 12th plan to renovate our manufac-
turing equipment by more than one-third, and have up to
50 percent new equipment in use.
Comrades, in retooling the national economy and in
carrying out the S&T revolution, the commanding, key
role belongs to machine building. We are faced with
changing radically attitudes toward the machine-build-
ing complex.... In the 11th Five-Year Plan period, only
about 5 percent of all capital investment in production
was directed toward civilian machine building.... In the
years 1986-90, capital investment for the civilian
machine-building ministries should be increased by 1.8
to 2.0 times.... This would correspond to the interests of
the technical reequiping of our economy.
Basically, we must ... move the center of gravity from
new construction to the technical renovation of enter-
prises.... The proportion of funds earmarked for recon-
struction in the overall volume of production and capital
investment must be increased in the years immediately
ahead from one-third to at least 50 percent.
First and foremost, machine building itself must be
reconstructed.... A serious base is being put down for a
mighty upsurge in Soviet machine building as the foun-
dation for the technical retooling of the national econo-
my. This is the main direction of our development, and it
must be firmly adhered to, both now and in the future.
Clearly, it is essential, following the example of the
defense industries, for the output of special equipment
for their own needs to be developed on a wide scale
within each machine-building ministry. And, in general,
the experience of the defense industries must be used to
full extent. We have begun this work. It has to be
continued actively.... Use of automated planning sys-
tems in the design bureaus of the aircraft industry has
made it possible to raise labor productivity by three
times and to reduce the time taken in planning manufac-
tures by 2.5 years. This is truly new technology, which is
bringing with it revolutionary changes in production.
The Role of Science and the Academy of Sciences
The frontline of the struggle to accelerate S&T progress
in the national economy advances through science....
We can and must obtain incomparably greater returns
from science. We should take a new look at the tasks of
science based on the requirements of our time, require-
ments that science be turned decisively toward the needs
of production and that production turn all its attention
and efforts to science.
Institutes of the Academy of Sciences must be turned
around sharply to face the direction of expanding re-
search, which is technological in its thrust, and their role
and responsibility for creating the theoretical founda-
tions for fundamentally new types of equipment and
technology must be enhanced.
It would not be amiss to examine the possibility of
setting up a Department for Engineering Problems in the
Academy.
The organization within the framework of the USSR
Academy of Sciences of integrated, interindustry S&T
centers ... is highly effective. Such centers are capable
of being pilot organizations, coordinating basic research
and the entire work along the most important, interin-
dustrial S&T directions. It is evidently fitting for such
centers to have design organizations and experimental
enterprises.
Particularly severe demands must be made on industrial
science.... More than half of the nation's scientists are
concentrated here, and about 90 percent of all alloca-
tions for R&D are directed here. Hundreds of research
establishments, planning, technological, and design orga-
nizations come under the authority of individual minis-
tries alone. The final results of the activity of many of
them ... are very low.
Paradoxical as it may seem, the main weakness of
industrial science lies in its isolation from production. In
order to overcome this, many industrial institutes and
design bureaus should-right now-amalgamate with
production associations and enterprises.
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We need to establish in general the extent to which the
existing network of industrial scientific establishments
corresponds to modern times. In the current five-year-
plan period, the State Committee for Science and Tech-
nology undertook such an attempt, but the work was not
carried through. It is very important to give new impetus
to all work on developing the network of science-
production associations, which should become the real
outposts of S&T progress.
Raising the effectiveness of science to a great extent
depends on the state of the experimental testing and
design base, which-it must be said frankly-because of
our errors in reckoning has greatly lagged behind in its
development and hampers the introduction of scientific
achievements. The problems of building up the testing
base and of supplying scientific equipment and instru-
ments must be solved as quickly as possible.
Proposals to create management consulting firms, orga-
nizations specializing in introducing innovations, engi-
neering firms, and so on also merit careful study.
The extremely important tasks connected with the S&T
revolution demand a substantial improvement in plan-
ning and a radical strengthening of the role and responsi-
bility of the USSR Gosplan.... We must implement in
practice Lenin's stipulation about transforming Gosplan
into the country's leading economic science agency,
gathering together major scientists and leading special-
ists. This must be done so that, as Lenin put it, we have
broad plans backed up by technology and trained
science.
The question also arises of the place and role of the
GKNT. The CPSU Central Committee receives many
critical observations about this organization. The Coun-
cil of Ministers must determine precisely the competence
of the committee. Clearly, responsibility must be placed
on the GKNT for the exercise of control over the S&T
level of the ministries.... Without substituting for either
the planning organs or the ministries, the GKNT must
concentrate attention on forecasting, on choosing and
justifying the priority directions for the development of
science and technology ... and this must be served by a
comprehensive program of S&T progress.
Improving Innovation Incentives
We need a mechanism that really ensures advantages to
labor collectives that successfully speed up S&T prog-
ress. We need a mechanism that makes the output of
obsolete and inefficient goods unprofitable and economi-
cally punishes both management and the labor collective,
and, in the final analysis, leads to a deterioration in the
indicators of an enterprise's performance.... Our sys-
tem of incentives is extremely confused, cumbersome,
and inefficient.
Comrades, the acceleration of S&T progress insistently
demands a profound reorganization of the system of
planning and management.... Without this, everything
that we are talking about today may remain but a fond
hope. We have been going round these problems for
many years now and sizing up how best to solve them.
But there is little real progress.... We are becoming
ever more convinced that inertia and merely going
through the motions in this work are no longer tolerable.
More and more industries are joining in the large-scale
economic experiment. But . . . we must move on from the
experiment to the establishment of an integrated system
of management and administration.... The drawing up
of such a system must be completed in a short space of
time.... We must start from the top echelons.
The ministries, in their present form, in the way they
function . . . have no interest in the economic experiment,
and particularly they have no interest in the introduction
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of those principles upon which we are carrying out the
experiment.... The ministry ... has vast experience and
the ability to keep a tight rein on everybody and interpret
the decisions of the Central Committee and the govern-
ment in such a way that, after the application and all the
recommendations, nothing is left of these principles.
S&T progress requires more freedom and flexibility in
adopting decisions at the level of the association and the
enterprise, for the introduction of advanced technology is
organically linked with the selection of options, quick
reaction to new things, and an interest in the final
result.... Their opportunities have been expanded some-
what. But to a significant extent they still have not been
able to implement their ideas because central planning
and finance bodies, the ministries, and all-union produc-
tion associations have ... basically nullified the rights of
enterprises.
Strengthening the Party's Role
We need to strengthen party influence on the whole
course of S&T progress, fortify the party stratum in its
key sectors....
Experience shows that a successful form of party guid-
ance is the councils for S&T progress attached to the
central committees of union republic Communist parties,
kraykoms, obkoms, and gorkoms.
The party committees of ministries ... are obliged to stir
themselves up sharply ... to come to grips with the
cardinal issues of the development of various industries.
I would like to stress yet again: times have changed.
They are making new demands on party activity, its style
and methods, and hence on cadres.
Reorienting Cadre Policy
Systematic work in retraining management and scientif-
ic and engineering cadres acquires particular urgency.
Implementation and Urgency of Action
We cannot postpone the implementation of this work,
since we realize that, unless we create new economic and
organizational conditions, there cannot be a real accel-
eration in S&T progress.
It has to be said, comrades, that we are talking about a
long-term political line. And not one of the problems that
we are obliged to solve today can be put off until
tomorrow. One cannot linger. One cannot wait, for there
is no time left for getting going. It has all been exhausted
in the past. Movement must be ahead only, and must
build up speed.
The whole experience of the party says that there is little
that can be changed in the economy, in management, or
in education if the psychological adjustment is not made,
if the desire and the ability to think and to work in a new
way are not produced. A simple truth, it would appear.
But it is one that our cadres are recognizing still only
with difficulty and with caution.
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Top Secret
Top Secret
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