FIVE YEAR PLAN 1946-50

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00926A004200030059-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 14, 2002
• Sequence Number: 59
• Publication Date: August 15, 1951
• Content Type: REPORT

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A p p ro vedAstgfet Mist RODIati32AUX =MUM Cati/61400420003005b:0
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION REPORT
COUNTRY USSR
SUBJECT Five Year Plan 1946-50
PLACE
ACQUIRED
DATE
ACQU I RE
25X1C
REPORT NO.
CD NO.
DATE DISTR.
25X1A
16/ Aug 1951
NO. OF PAGES 5
NO. OF ENCLS.
(LISTED BELOW)
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
IIATF nr I NIPMKAATinni
25X1X
1.
The report of the State Planning Committee USSR (Gooplan) and the Central
Statistical Administration USSR on the results of the fulfilIment'of the first H
post-ear five year plan (1946-1950) was published on 17 April 1951.
2. Before examining the data contained in the report, a fey words shoulebe said
about the circumetanCes surrounding the appearance of this report and about some
of its peculiarities. What dalles one first of all is the considerable delV
-- three and a half months -- in pUblishi the report on the five-year plan.
BUt it is even more strange that this report comes a month after the session
of the Supreme Soviet USSR, which, logically, should have htari it and. approved
a nay five-year plan. We have already pointed out in materials submitted earlier
that this had not been done, and for that reason we were even *vet
pression that the Kremlin had decided to alter the entire system cr national ,
economic planning, to Change over from the principle of the five year plans - 25X1
(rigid plans for all branches of the USSR national economy) to a more flexible
system of state "plan-aasignmente for individual branches of the economy and
even for different time periods.
3. The posplan and TaSu report of 17 April (formally dated 16 April 1950 (siE/ )
? soi,ys nothing specifically about the principle of planning for the future, but
its very title is an indirect indication that the system of five-year plans Yin
remain. The announcement is entitled "The Report of the State Platting Committee
? USSR and the TsSu USSR on the Results of the rulfillment of the Fourth (First
Port-var) Five Year Plan of the USSR for 1946-1950." The incln,sion in the 'tale
el Aqq1FICIATICIN Mrs nww-rr?r AT c rarr
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of the words "Fiest Post-war" Seems to be an indirect indication that a-second
post-war aive-year plan is to'f011aW;.that is, that the system of fiveyear
eConomic continue. Thlawas undonbtedly done to dispel the con-
fUsion wbich the approval of a enearetc plan for 1951 bad produced in places.
Under ties existing circumstances the only thing which remaims unclear is tile
question of the role and character of the present (1951) economic year: Will
it remain a, transitional year between the first and second post-war five-year
plans; or will a second five-year plan simply be announced after considerable
delay, the present year being considered the first year of the second five-
yeer plan? ,.Right now the second conjecture seems the more probable, but 'with
this correction?that-this year will actually be a transitional one, although
it will mot be fermally so considered. Be".that as it may, this mneh is beyond
doUht: Some kied of pieeeing-statistical trickvall be introduced with the an-
nouncement of the. eecond five-year plan.
It is also obvious that from the text of the report, in drawing up the second
flee-year plea, Oosplat will =Viciously preserve the Most important character-
istic .....the ehole Soviet economy--the dispropertionete development between the
eroduction of capital goods and- consumer goads. In spite of the fact that the
first fee-year plan provided foe maximum tempos in the development of heavy
industry and war industries, with all others lagging behind, and in spite or the
feet that the Ooeplan and TsSU report emphasizes the overfelfillment of the plan
fO be6,N7y? industry and nonfulfillment of plats for transport, the light and food
industries, and agriculture, nevertheless, the report 'States in several placee
, that the tempos of growth of heavy industry do iot meet the meads of the rational
economy and must be increased. This shays tE;t7E' the? still-secret plan for
1951; as vallas in the whole Second post-war five-year plan; an even greater
effort eillAe Made to develop all branches of the national economy which are
geared for war than were made in the previous five-year plan. Consequently,
there will be a still greeter disproportion betweeh heavy and light 'industry, a
still greater burden on transport, and a still greater lag in agriculture. There
will also be no-improvement in living conditions. Such are the genera/ prospects
for the future which emerge from the Gosplan and TsSU report on fulfillment Of
the First Post-war live Year Plan.
Passing to an analysis of the report itself, it should be remarked that it con-
tains no absolute figures. All results are given' only in percentages. Beat
even in this respect there is no set standard: comparisons are made either with
1940 or With the first year of the five-year plan (1946), or more accurately,
with 1945. If the presentation of data only in percentages can be explained by
the deadee to maintain secrecy; the dual principle of comparison is a trick
designed to conceal the fact that one 'or another branch of the national economy
is lagging behind. In all cases of lagging or disruption, a comparison is rode
with 1945. In this way a great propaganda effect is attained--"growths of two
or three times is demonstrated, although in reality not only is there no "growth"
but there is even nonfulfillment of the plan and disruption. In e majority of
oases this trick is applied ttekdata on the light, food, and timber industries and
to agriculture, that is, to all these branches of the national economy in 'which
the population is most interested. The mythical "growth" attempts to conceal the
lack of goods and products needed by the population.
7. The attempt to conceal through percentages the actual state of the Soviet econdmy
appears naive and even stupid, inasmuch as percentages of fulfillment of the five
-
Year plan are almost everywhere pointed out, 'while the lay on the First Post-war
-live Year Plan (with absolute figures) can be foutd in any Soviet libramY. It was
printed in millions of copies of special pemphle* and was contained in all Soviet
newspapers of 21 March 1946. In this instance the Soviet mania for secrecy breaks
all previous records. Interpreting the percentages is so simple that it in even
difficult to understand why Stalin and the Politburo decided to play this strange,
unnecessary, and self-defeating trick.
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8. AA Will be seen below, silence with regard to many branches of the national
ecOximiy Vete more effeCtive, although even here the attempt of the Kremlin to
conCealitiveaknesses seems rather naive. It mut be said that these "empty
gaPs" in the Gosplan report have turned out to be greater in number than could
have been anticiPated; aad this is the most important feature of this document
for all those-who study its economic data. :
9. 4 table of the most important types of strategic raw materials follows (in
*illions of tons).
1940
1950 (Plan)
1950 (Fulfillment)
Steel. .
. 18.3
25.4
27.3
Pig Iron. . . .
. . 15.0
19.5
20.8
Coal
166.0
250.0
260.0
Petroleum
. 31.0
35.4
37.9
10. Although the plan for teel, pig iron and coal was significantly overfUlfilled,
tbI Gosplan report says that the tempos of growth in ferrous metallurgy and the
anal industry do not meet the needs of the national economy. Therefore, extreme
measuree to inFFeii; (11Wil and coal production will mn4oubtedly be undertaken.
/Cis very characteristic that this is not said in regard to the petroleum
yield, although petroleum is at present one of the weakest aspects of the entire
Soviet economy. Only the need for the speedy construction of new oil refineries
is mentioned. This reflects their full realization that the exploitation
imtentiaIities of the old oil deposits (Baku, Grozny, and Maikop) have reached
their limit, and that expansion of the exploitation of new ones (In Bashkir,
TUrkmenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kuibyshev Oblast) strikes up against the
extreme weakness of the technological base. Tram this, the conclusion follows
that the new five-year plan will pay particular attention to the technical
outfitting of new oil-bearing regions.
11. A general conclusion is that the center of gravity for the extraction and re-
fining of oil is moving more and more eaatward. The contrary is true for coal.
The Gosplan report particilarly emphasizes that the Donbas has aRain become
the most important balXnalh.the country. Although the report speaks of' signifi-
cant achievements in the development of the coal industry in the KUzbas, the
Karaganda region, the Urals and the Picherskiy basin, these new bases are rele-
gated to a relatively secondary place. In this case the root of the question
lies not in the potentialities of these new areas of the coal industry, but in
the condition of the transportation network of the USSR. After twenty years
of experimentation the Kremlin has become convinced that the eastern coal basins
(in spite of their immense potentialities) cannot replace the western basins, and
th't a transfer of the fuel balance of the country eastward is economically un-
profitable. This, of course, does not mean that the exploitation of the eastern
and northern coal basins will be slowed down or stopped, but that the Donbas is
once more the coal center of primary importance in the USSR.
12. Maximum tempos also characterite the development of the Moacow coal basin, in
spite of the rather poor quality of the Moscow coal. Here, too, the question
of profitability dominates all others. The hauling of coal over long distances
has proved to be too heavy a burden for the Soviet railroads, and the closest
possihle proximity of fuel bases to industrial centers is now the slogan of the
dir. This same tendency underlies the over-strained tempos in the construction
of the new hydroelectric stations. All this, taken together, indicates that the
previous system of distributing Soviet industrial centers is being reconsidered,
along with moving these centere westward. It is very possible that this it the
primary reason for maintaining complete silence in regard to the economic IOnie
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for 1951 and for delaying so long the adoption of a new five-year plan. An
analysla of the Gosplan report of 17 April allows one only to point out the
presence of such a general tendency in general Soviet pleeeing. The whole
question has such a tremendous political and military-strategic import that
any haste in making a final decision would be unforgivably rresponsible. Here
nay be the key to the vhole policy of the USSR, and for this reason this ques-
tion should be the object of the most careful, persistent and painstaking study.
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13. The second most important political item in. the Gosplan and TsSU report relates
to transport. It is obvious from the report that the last five-year plan
devoted particular attention to the restoration and modernization of rolling
stock, and in this sphere considerable progress was achieved. On the other
hand, the imMenee program for the restoration and construction of railway
track outlined in the five-year plan was unfulfilled. This program provided
for the restoration of 15,000 km- of railway tracks, the conversion of several
main lines into quadruple-track system, the restoration of 1,800 large and
average-sized bridges, 1,500 stations; 1,300 railroad depots, etc.; awl also
the MAW construction of 7,000 km of railway tracks. The Gosplan report mentions
that the five-year plan for the restoration of the railways, bridges and stations
was not fulfilled. Regarding new construction, the report also mentions that
new railroads had been built, particularly in regions of the North and in Central
Asia.
14. In this area the failure of the plan is beyond doubt, and as a result, railway
transport has become an even weaker spot in the Soviet economy than it had been
before. A way out is sought by increasing the average load per car, but in light
of the existing overstrain on the transportation system this problem which con-
fronts the Soviet Government cannot be successfully resolved.
'
15. It would, however, be a mistake to interpret the failure of the plan for the
conatruction and restoration of railvaes exclusively as the result of a basic
inability to resolve the problem because of a deficiency in =newer' and mate-.
rials. Part of the reason for this failure lies in the fact that assignments
for the Construction of highways and dirt roads were sharplyincreased when the
fiite-year Plan was already iu operation. The plan provided for 11,500 new
dirt roads with bard outfaces. Actually, 16,000 each roads were built, mmong
them the main automobile Moscow-Simferopol' highway, which was begun before the
war. This, in conjunction with the Moscow-Leningrad highway, which was con-
structed still earlier, has resulted in the formation of a single, large auto-
mdbile Artery transecting the entire European portion of the USSR from north
to south and uniting into ode complex the industrial centers of the northern
and central regions and the iidustrial south. The completion of this con-
struction has an exceedingly at military-strategic, as well as economic,
importance. According to of ial data, the USSR now has from 2 to 5 times more
hard-surfaced roads than it ? before the var.
16. When we add to all this that e Gosplan report noted that the plan for river
and sea transport was not led, we are brought to the general, indisputable
cunclusion that the transpo r ' ?blem in the USSR was not resolved by the five-
year plan, and that priority was given to the construction of highways, where
results were very considerable. And so, the resolution' of the transport problem
noir takes two basic directions in. the USSR: an increase in the average load
per freight car and an intensive construction of roads, designed to relieve
rail transport. In the latter instance immeasurably more will have to be done
in order for the results to be perceptible, but the tendency itself is clear
enough.
17. The production of construction materials presents a third major problem. Ears
the picture is clarified not so much by the Gosplan report itself, as by a
number of separate reports Which have. appeared recently, the majority of which
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*41. have analyzed it previously submitted papers. 1.21 this sector of the Soviet
economy not only i the Plan not fulfilled, but there exists a serious crisis
in thelSatiotion et Cement, brick, tiabeetos and virtually every other kind of
construction -material. Without the prompt solution of thisproblem, construc-
tion on a large Scale will be impossible in the? future. It in for this reason
that the nert five-year plan will be, ?to a significant extent, a. five-year plan
for construction materials, the shortage of which reached catastrophic propor-
tions' after the adoption of the state plan for the gigantic canal and. hydro-
electric station projects and the simultaneous, maximum development of the
highway system. It is precisely here that the Soviet economy comes up egainst
one of its most difficult task's. Since the construction materials industry is
azolectremely neglected state, almost all of it needs to be thorolIghiy
modernized, -and-it ii3 hardly likely that it will soon be in any condition to
-meet the. demands made on it.
18. The assignments set by the five-year plan to expand the production of mass
constuner goods were all unfulfilled.. Therefore, the five-year plan. brought with
it no improvement in living conditions. There was a significant increase in the
production of only those goods which either had not been produced at all before
the war or were produced in negligible amounts--bicycles, motorcycles, radio
receivers, watches: etc. This was achieved solely by assembling and exploiting
the plants and. factories renoired from the occupied countries in 1911.5-1947, and
also by various statistical machinations which represent goods exported from
occupied countries as results of the production of Soviet industry.
19. The information providad by the Ciosplen report rels virtually nothing new,
Considering what we have already written along this Line on the basis of data
received earlier. One should note only the unexpected disclosure by Gosplan
of the "secret? of the "achieveinents" of animal husbandry in kolkhozes. Gosplan
reports. that the total livestock in the USSR increased k percent over the 1940
figure; that is it remained eesentially the same,. At the same time, livestock
awned by the koikhozes increased from li.0 tb 60 percent. in other words, all the
"achievements" of kolkhoz animal husbandry came about from the fact that around
50 percent. of the livestock which had previously been at the private disposal
of kolkhozniks have been taken by ibrce into the. kolkhozes. This has increased
the commodity production capacity of kolkhozes in respect to animal husbandry,
but has not improved in any way the lot of v population--far from it.
20. .And so, the general political conclusion 'to be drawn from the Gosplan and TsSU
report on the fulfillment of the first poit-war five-year plan is that the plan
did not solve any of the problems confronting Soviet economy, but only increased
the disproportion between the branches of the national economy which are geared
to war, on the one hand, and all other branches of the economy, on the Ot er.
This same line of development will characterize the next period, too, reg&rdleas
of whether they publish a single, new five year plan or adopt a more flexible
planning system (which seems rather improbable).
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