Alexei Nikolaevich Kosygin is considered by many to be the most intelligent and strong-willed leader of the Soviet government in the post-war period. Very often in the discussions, the Kosygin reform is mentioned, which was supposed to rid the country of the "charms" of the planned economy, which already then showed itself from the worst side.

Not only communists, but even democrats and liberals of the modern government are almost ready to sing odes to this minister, forgetting the simple fact that it was his failed reform that largely predetermined both the death of the Soviet economy and the collapse of the entire state as a whole. By the way, the real creator of the reform plan was Yevsey Grigorievich Lieberman, who later settled down very well in the United States. You can draw conclusions yourself.

So what characterizes the Kosygin reform? The idea, essence, results of this ambitious project, we will describe on the pages of this material.

The beginning of reforms

In 1962, the famous newspaper Pravda published an article entitled "Plan, Profit, Bonus", which made a lot of noise at that time. It proposed things unthinkable for a Soviet person: to make the main criterion of the efficiency of all enterprises in the country their real indicators of profitability and profit! At the same time, Khrushchev gives the go-ahead to start the experiment at several large enterprises in the country at once.

This is what the Kosygin reform consisted of. In short, it was an attempt to transfer the socialist economy onto a capitalist track. It didn't end well.

Government co-operator

In general, Kosygin's career began with a successful study at a cooperative technical school. In those years, the opinion was very popular that it was cooperation that could save the country weakened from the hardships of the Civil War. He worked in one of the Siberian industrial cooperatives, where he showed himself from the best side. Contemporaries recall that Alexei Nikolaevich probably would have felt perfect during the NEP.

Alas, his dreams collapsed at the end of the cooperative program (which the future minister greatly regretted). In 1930, Kosygin had to return to Leningrad. There he entered the textile institute, after which he began his rapid career. In just four years, he rose high on the career ladder, and after the Great Patriotic War he became a member of the Politburo.

Iosif Vissarionovich highly valued Kosygin as a civilian specialist, but did not allow his participation in public administration... Eyewitnesses report that the main epithet used by Stalin in his relation was the word "passenger car". Most likely, he meant the fact that the minister light industry has not yet "matured" to serious business.

In principle, the Kosygin reform itself showed the same. In short, the minister did not take into account too many factors, and therefore the changes he proposed turned out to be extremely harmful.

After Stalin

The arrival of Khrushchev changed the situation. Under him, Kosygin became chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee. Under Brezhnev, his career took off even faster: a former member of the cooperative headed the Government of the USSR. In principle, you should not consider him a kind of unprincipled careerist. Contemporaries just recalled that the minister constantly communicated with representatives of the creative and technical intelligentsia, and other members of the Politburo openly disliked him. However, this was explained by banal envy and recognition of Kosygin's superiority.

In many ways, the hostility of his colleagues was explained by the fact that he openly advocated the liberalization of social processes in the country, supported all ideas about the Western way of life. In the company of his comrades from the Politburo and other party organizations, he was almost always extremely strict and serious, although in reality he was the kindest person, in many cases acting as the "soul of the company."

This contradiction was explained quite simply. Kosygin was convinced that old system management, which was formed under Stalin, was a monolithic rock, heavy and clumsy, which practically did not succumb to any efforts to modernize it. Working a lot on the latter, Aleksey Nikolaevich understood more and more clearly that his efforts were in vain. Unsurprisingly, he had no time for fun in a work environment.

The minister clearly saw that under Brezhnev, the country's development proceeded exclusively on paper. Everything was calculated in "gross production" National economy, and these indicators were very far from reality. This very production was calculated according to a certain "factory principle", and in its calculation it was deliberately possible to make a lot of additions and errors, so that it was not at all difficult to overestimate the indicators.

Often, both the finished product and intermediate products were counted five (!) Times, which led to more and more improving schedules in official reports, but attracted real economy to the bottom.

The gap between the “shaft” and objective reality became deeper and deeper. For example, in order to increase the paper figures, the enterprise could well produce cheap shoes, and then use some expensive materials in their decoration. The price of the product increased several times. Since no one bought such shoes, they were destroyed in a planned manner. The same situation developed in agriculture where real surpluses of production (hello to the planned economy!) in quantities of tens and hundreds of thousands of tons worthlessly rotted in warehouses.

The labor of thousands and millions of people flew into the pipe, the country incurred huge financial costs because of the flagrant mismanagement. "Gross output" was constantly growing, victorious reports were heard at the congresses of the Central Committee of the CPSU, but the real provision of people with the necessary goods fell from year to year. All this theoretically made it possible to overcome the economic reform of Kosygin.

National economy problems

In fact, a normal national economy did not exist in the country, since each department existed in complete isolation from one another, and their leaders often put a spoke in their opponents' wheels. Often there were cases when one enterprise produced building materials in one city and took it almost to the other end of the country, while another plant located in the same area really needed this material, but it was served by another department.

The industry was not interested in consumer interests at all. So, there was a case when at one tire plant they were able to reduce the cost of one car tire... Only she began to travel 10 thousand kilometers less, and the buyer remained at a loss of about 25 rubles. It’s a paradox, but the employees of the enterprise were rewarded for the "economy", while no one thought about the losses of buyers.

Then the Kosyginskaya "reform of 1965" was conceived. In short, all these shortcomings had to be eliminated as soon as possible.

But the most ridiculous thing was that the factories were absolutely not interested in a banal study of the demand for their products, since other departments were dealing with this issue. In warehouses, stocks of manufactured, but completely unclaimed products were constantly expanding.

The situation was especially wild in the construction industry. More and more often contractors began to undertake exclusively digging of foundation pits and filling of massive foundations, as reporting on these works was the most profitable and "pleasant". But nobody was in a hurry to deal with finishing and even real construction of "boxes" of buildings. The number of unfinished construction grew, and gigantic resources were simply thrown into the wind.

Kosygin concept

Kosygin, using the theses developed by Lieberman, proposed to completely abandon the indicators of the mythical "gross output". He believed that the manufacturer should bear strict responsibility for the entire cycle of work performed by him, comply with all terms and conditions of production.

It was proposed to shift the formation of the number of workers to the personnel services of the enterprises themselves, so as not to breed idlers, to establish the size of the average wages and indicators of labor productivity, to enable factories to attract government loans in case of need for the development of production lines. It was also proposed to establish state incentives for the real quality of work. In September 1965, the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU decided that the Kosygin reform should be implemented at enterprises.

Economic reform action

Kosygin reasonably hoped that with the introduction of the indicator of the actual sales of products, the enterprises would stop producing unnecessary junk, and would focus on the production of high-quality, in-demand goods. It must be said that the beginning of Kosygin's reform was quite encouraging and promising.

In particular, at the Shchekino Chemical Combine, half of the unnecessary employees were dismissed, their wages were divided among those who remained at the enterprise, as a result of which labor productivity and the quality of products increased twice. In one of the state farms, the size of wages as a result of normal economic activity increased several times. Each of the employees received enough money in almost a couple of months to easily buy any car that was produced at that time.

It would seem that Kosygin's economic reform is proceeding with brilliant results.

Unfortunately, it was still a "show", since such indicators were achieved exclusively due to the created "greenhouse" conditions, which is impossible in a normal economy. Taking advantage of the position of "leaders", many enterprises simply brazenly milked appropriations from the state, some of which (despite the legendary KGB) ended up in the pockets of interested persons.

The hidden essence of reform

The Kosygin reform itself was met in the USSR in completely different ways. Talented business executives saw in her real opportunity make money. Others said the economy was about to collapse. It turned out "everything is as always", that is, bad. As we have already said, the "leaders" immediately rushed to look for all conceivable and inconceivable pretexts for increasing state appropriations. The leadership of the State Planning Commission faced a bunch of problems. As profit margins theoretically increased, inflation rates skyrocketed.

Disadvantages of the reform

This was due to the fact that enterprises could use surplus income only to increase wages. It was impossible to allocate money for the development of production itself, for the release of new products or the construction of housing for employees, since nothing of the kind was laid down in the plan. In addition, demand studies were still not carried out, and therefore it was simply impossible to determine whether a new product would find its buyer.

As a result of all this, labor productivity has partially increased, but the size of wages has increased several times. Simply put, the people had a lot of free money on their hands, but they could not buy anything with it, since there were simply no goods of everyday and increased demand. So the Kosygin economic reform theoretically solved a lot of problems, but only added a lot of new ones.

Increased drunkenness

As a result (no matter how paradoxical it may seem at first glance), the real income of the state soon fell. I had to resort to a time-tested remedy, significantly increasing the production of vodka. The number of drunkards increased dramatically. In addition, a lot of free working hands appeared in the country, which had nowhere to attach. The specter of unemployment loomed more and more clearly before Soviet citizens, which in former times could not even have been imagined.

As we have already said, everything turned out badly: the management of the enterprises received huge profits, but the state had to cover all their whims. But at that time no one still had the spirit to say that the capitalist method of economic management (and the Kosygin reform was exactly that) required appropriate measures ...

Comparison of Old and New Economy Models

It is important to know what exactly, in detail, the new model of the economy differed from the old one. The fact is that one of the most important mechanisms of social development in the USSR was a guarantee of annual price reductions (!). The profit of the enterprises was often not connected in any way with the cost of the manufactured products.

Moreover, the management and employees focused precisely on the constant reduction of the cost of the manufactured goods, and all other indicators worried them little, or did not care at all. Everything was changed by the beginning of the Kosygin reforms, but until then it was so.

Imagine a factory from that era that produces, say, cars. The usual cost of the car at that time was about 5,000 rubles. Suppose the government has determined a profit of 20% of this amount. Thus, in monetary terms, it is equal to 1,000 rubles. The price of a car in the store is 6.000 rubles. Simply put, if you reduce the cost by half, then theoretically you can achieve a profit of as much as 3,500 rubles from each car! No small temptation for "kosygingev".

The mechanism of the Stalinist model of the economy

Under Stalin's economic model the increase in profits was achieved in two ways: by increasing the output of goods and reducing the cost of the latter. At the end of each reporting year in mandatory a new, reduced cost value was recorded. This value was added to the amount of profit, after which a new price was formed. For example, if the cost of some equipment was equal to 2,500 rubles, and, for example, the same 20% profit was added to it, then in the end it turned out three thousand rubles.

Thus, the consumer and the national economy as a whole received a good profit when purchasing this product. Simply put, the simplest, basic economic law was in force, which read: "The lower the cost, the lower the price." But Kosygin destroyed this norm, which had existed for decades.

Capitalism's brutal blow, system collapse

In fact, the Kosygin reform was supposed to turn everything upside down. What became the main thing? Profit. It was expressed as a percentage of the cost. The relationship is simple: the more a product costs, the more income the manufacturer has. Thus, it has become more profitable to strive to increase the cost of production than our "businessmen" are busy to this day ...

It soon became clear that cost reduction was materially punishable, and therefore the point in the annual race to improve production disappeared. Prices began to rise rapidly. As a result, they lost everything: the manufacturer, employees, and customers. And this strategy did not give the state anything good either. Thus, the Kosygin reform (the results of which are briefly described in the article) should be recognized as an extremely unsuccessful experiment.

Alas, but it was she who did another "dirty deed". In the old days, the entire team was really interested in the development of production. When, in order to make a profit, it was necessary, in fact, to organize sabotage in production, the management of many enterprises quickly took their bearings and began to remove workers from the processes of improving and developing plants and factories. All the money received was first divided between the "main minds", and only their remnants reached the collectives.

Simply put, the results of Kosygin's reform boiled down to the formation of small capitalism in its worst form, when everything, including the health and life of consumers, is added to the “altar of profit”.

In fact, this is exactly how the process of privatization of enterprises began. In the 90s, many of the former party bosses who led them happily seized upon the old dream of taking them into their own hands. The process of the collapse of the economy and the state began, which was especially evident in the union republics. In principle, the Kosygin reform of 1965 exactly recreated the times of the NEP.

Negative consequences

The entire planned economy, which, although it did not shine with perfection, but nevertheless fulfilled its function, went wild. The leaders have finally lost the desire to engage in real analysis of production, the study of demand and other "unnecessary" things, preferring to increase profits by all possible ways and stuffing your pockets. The workers also turned out to be not interested in improving labor productivity and quality of goods - after all, the Kosygin reform was characterized by a tremendous increase in wages, and few paid real attention to the quality of products!

You should not consider Kosygin a traitor: he himself stalled his reform when he saw its results. But he did not see the true scale of what happened, and other party leaders preferred not to notice the incipient collapse. economic system... What were the reasons for the failure of Kosygin's reforms? Oh, it was all very commonplace.

The problem was that no one created an economic model, no one tried to implement this system in a separate production facility under the conditions of “ free swimming”, And the industry was completely unprepared for such changes. In addition, everything was spoiled by catastrophic corruption and bureaucracy.

In fact, in this regard, the USSR collapsed already in the 80s, when many Central Asian republics already openly controlled the local "kings" who had pumped everything they could out of the center before. All this was directly promoted by the Kosygin reform of 1965.

about five years and allowed us to enter the 1970s in a state of staff stability. V economic policy Brezhnev considered agriculture, heavy industry and the military-industrial complex a priority.

Kosygin's reform

Back in the late 1950s, economists L. Kantorovich, V. Nemchinov, V. Novozhilov and others tried to find a model for optimal planning. In 1962, an article in Pravda by the economist Lieberman opened a discussion about the role of profit in the socialist economy. Its essence boiled down to the fact that profit was to become one of the most important criteria for the operation of enterprises. Various opinions were expressed about the need for a transition to economic methods of management, the revitalization of commodity-money relations. In the spring of 1965, an article by Nemchinov was published, in which the author proposed introducing a "self-supporting planning system." The idea was to form a plan from the bottom up.

From the enterprise to the ministry. In essence, the plan was supposed to become not so much a task as a government order. , and development depended on its implementation social sphere enterprises. These views, radical at the time, however, made the process of formulating the plan much more laborious and required significantly higher qualifications of ministerial officials.

The results of the discussion were summed up in September 1965 at the plenum of the Central Committee. Reform tendencies within the "collective leadership" were associated with the name of Kosygin. It was he who spoke at the plenum with a report "On improving industrial management, improving planning and strengthening economic incentives for industrial production."

Kosygin was a representative of the technocratic reformers who formed in the 1930s. In 1939, at the age of 35, he became Commissar textile industry, and in 1940-1960. with short breaks, he was the first deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars - the Council of Ministers of the USSR. He headed the State Planning Committee of the USSR, and after the resignation of Khrushchev became Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. According to his views, Kosygin was an adherent of the liberalization course economic relations within the framework of the planned economy, which Voznesensky and Malenkov tried to implement in different years. Kosygin witnessed the collapse of his ideological predecessors and, of course, never openly declared his sympathies, was extremely careful in pursuing his economic line. He considered the development of light industry a priority, which formed the basis for the stability of the social situation in cities in the context of the rapidly developing process of urbanization.

In Kosygin's report, it was proposed to abandon the system of economic councils. The sectoral principle of industrial management was restored in order to achieve "a combination of centralization of management with the expansion of operational and economic independence of enterprises." Thus, the expansion of the sphere of "grassroots planning" had to be combined with planning from the center. It was assumed that the ministries will, on a scientific basis, determine the development strategy of the industry and the main "directions, proportions and rates of economic development." This provision was followed by an important practical solution: The number of mandatory targets was reduced to 9 instead of 30 in previous years. Instead of the volume of gross output, the main indicator of the work of enterprises and industries was volume of products sold, which, according to Kosygin, should have made production directly dependent on the consumer. It was planned to revive production by integrating such economic levers as price, profit, credit, premiums into the planned-directive economy.

Economic incentives were supposed to gradually strengthen cost accounting: implementation of the plan and effective use of production assets at the enterprises allowed to deduct more funds from the profit into incentive funds. These funds, in turn, became a source of development of production and improvement of technology, material incentives for workers and employees, for which bonuses and "13th salary" were provided for at the end of the year. From incentive funds, an enterprise could spend money on improving working and living conditions, in particular, on housing construction.

Even with the ideal implementation of the program declared by Kosygin, it was about half measures, which for that time, undoubtedly, looked extremely progressive. The half-hearted nature of economic initiatives initially laid contradictions in the basis of the reform. The peculiarity of the situation consisted in combining ideological control with ideas of economic reform, the core of which was technocratic values. This eclectic combination was the result of compromises at the top and predetermined the mutual adaptation of these tendencies in the future, becoming a brake on the cardinal solution of all the main problems of internal development.

Both by nature and by virtue of the objective development of the situation, Kosygin was inclined to adapt, never firmly insisted on his views. At the same time, he rather consistently pursued a personnel policy, largely contributed to the formation of a new layer of economic managers, the distinctive features of which were a good knowledge of production, really state economic thinking, the ability to understand administrative and bureaucratic wisdom and lobby the interests of their industries or giant enterprises. ... However, these business executives did not imagine themselves outside the Soviet economic system, although they distanced themselves from ideological issues, leaving them to be solved by specialists.

Reasons for the failure of economic reforms

The "Kosygin reform" began to be carried out in the fall of 1965. Instead of economic councils, 29 union and union-republican ministries were created. This measure returned real economic power the union bureaucracy, which has become a reliable pillar of the regime. Their union was further strengthened in 1967, when the Council of Ministers approved " General Provisions on the ministries of the USSR ", according to which administrative and economic powers of departments have been significantly increased... This situation objectively intensified the contradiction inherent in the reform between the independence of enterprises and the policy of the central departments. In conditions when the newly appointed officials had to prove themselves, the desired already fragile balance was inevitably violated in favor of the Center. In addition, large state committees were created to coordinate areas of work at the interdepartmental level - Goskomtsen, Gossnab, State Committee for Science and Technology. The creation of the Gossnab led to the previous practice, when an enterprise could not freely choose a supplier and consumer of its products, which also significantly limited the declared independence of enterprises.

In the first half of 1966, 243 highly profitable enterprises, mainly in the light and food industries, were transferred to the new economic system. Gradual activation of economic mechanisms throughout the eighth five-year plan

(1965-1970) gave a positive effect: for a while, the decline in the rate of industrial production stopped, and the five-year plan as a whole became one of the most successful in years Soviet power... During this period, horizontal economic ties established by the economic councils. Along with this, and

positive aspects of vertical management, expressed primarily in centralized investments, imports of Western equipment and technologies. The most famous example of such a policy is the construction in the late 1960s - early 1970s of the Volzhsky Automobile Plant within the framework of joint agreement with the Italian firm Fiat.

However, this was only a temporary effect. The main obstacle in the first year of the reform was the outdated pricing system, in which the coal industry, as well as food production, were deliberately unprofitable. The prices in the instrument-making industry and in the military-industrial complex were clearly inflated, where profits reached 50%. However, the pricing system, tightly coordinated through the Goskomtsen, reflected an ideological understanding of the priorities in the development of industries, which, on the whole, did not violate the sequence adopted since Stalin's times: heavy industry - military-industrial complex - other industries. Therefore, the enterprises of group "B" were doomed to remain "stepchildren" of the Soviet economy. The other side of the administrative pricing was the growth of wholesale prices, which only in mechanical engineering in 1966-1970. increased by a third. Thanks to artificially inflated wholesale prices, enterprises and entire industries fulfilled the plan for the rate of return, which was calculated in rubles and was one of the nine mandatory indicators of state reporting. The independence of enterprises in practice led to the fact that they underestimated planned targets in advance... As a result wages grew faster than labor productivity, which increased the budget deficit.

Ideological attitudes, departmental interests, and administrative-bureaucratic decisions made a decisive and extremely negative impact for all nine basic indicators without exception.

The stake on stimulating enterprises through incentive funds also did not justify itself. Bonuses for workers took place in isolation from real personal contributions to the production process and were not particularly significant in material terms. The construction of housing and other "social and cultural" facilities (kindergartens, dispensaries, medical units, clubs, etc.), even with the availability of funds, often ran into a shortage of building materials, which the management had to "knock out" in Moscow using personal connections. Funds for technical re-equipment were poorly spent.

The leaders of the enterprises were absolutely not interested in the massive introduction of scientific and technical achievements. as it was in a fever production cycle, rested on the lack of materials, in other words, "it was not planned and not sanctioned from above." Therefore, the proclaimed norm the "connection between science and production" became weak.

Despite a sharp increase in investment in agriculture, the actions of the new leadership in agrarian sector also led to only temporary and partial success. It was not possible to achieve complete food independence of the country from imports, although for some time it weakened somewhat. In 1966 there were practically no purchases of grain abroad, and in 1967 they were significantly below the average level. At the same time, there was no real "breakthrough" in this area either. A large number of those wishing to work in their personal subsidiary plots were not found. There was no hunters to return to hard physical labor. Material incentives for the collective farm economy initially went the wrong way, since monetary reward was not related to agricultural productivity... The introduction in the second half of 1966 had extremely negative long-term consequences for social relations in the collective farm sector. guaranteed wages for collective farmers, which was calculated on the basis of the tariff rates of state farm workers. Thus, the fragile connection between work efficiency and wages was completely eliminated. The salary

collective farmers were rapidly transformed into social benefits. Agriculture as a whole acquired a subsidized character.

Conservation of economics and management

The final rejection of the "Kosygin reform" took place in December 1969 at the plenum of the Central Committee. production resources, a tougher regime of economy in the national economy, the strengthening of labor and state discipline, etc. In the 1970s, a clear vertical structure of economic management was built, which includes the Council of Ministers and the State Planning Committee.

USSR, union and union-republican ministries, industrial associations and enterprises. The entire system begins to function on the basis of exclusively administrative methods, reproducing the same cycle of decisions from year to year, regardless of changes in the global economy and trying not to notice signs of stagnation.

With the economic levers of management of the national economy, even in their half-way execution, was done away with. The reason for this was a number of factors, but the main one, most likely, was the shock of the political leadership of the USSR, experienced in connection with the "Prague spring of 1968". The Czechoslovak crisis has more clearly defined the relationship between economic reforms and the inevitable political changes of the Soviet-style system... In addition, a number of foreign policy events played an important role, strengthening the confidence of the Soviet leadership in the growing military threat from the United States. All this led in the early 1970s to the strengthening of conservative tendencies, which fully corresponded to the views of Brezhnev, who became the undisputed leader in the Soviet political Olympus.

The potential of the "Kosygin reform" dissolves in various kinds of long-term experiments, which were based on a more or less expanded model of cost accounting. The most famous was the Shchekino experiment carried out in the late 1960s and the so-called "Zlobin method" in construction, which developed the same ideas a little later. The essence of the experiment at the Azot plant in the town of Shchekino, Tula Region, was that the plant's staff achieved a significant increase in production without increasing the number of employees through mechanization of labor-intensive workshops and manual labor. The same idea was at the heart of the "Zlobin method" named after the foreman of builders N.A. Zlobin from Zelenograd near Moscow: a team of builders took a contract for the entire cycle of work, which they pledged to complete on time and with high quality. At the same time, the members of the brigade themselves determined the volume of daily production, the distribution of duties and the amount of wages. As a result, the number of workers and staff turnover decreased, work time and materials, labor productivity increased, and construction times were reduced. It would seem that all the pluses were there. A noisy propaganda campaign was launched around the Shchekino experiment and the "Zlobin method", special decrees were adopted, and attempts were made to introduce a new "initiative" on a mass scale. Moreover, at some enterprises, advanced experience has been successfully implemented: wages have actually increased, and labor turnover has decreased. However, progressive experience was not widely disseminated. He faced several major obstacles. First of all, the question arose about the remuneration of administrative and managerial personnel, if not at the brigade level, then at the enterprise level, which was very difficult to reduce. In addition, it is not known what was to be done with the workers freed as a result of the intensification. Business leaders were afraid to take decisive steps because they were not sure that

And with a desire to make fuller use of the intensive factors of economic growth. The latter was achieved by increasing labor productivity through improving its culture, intensity and organization, as well as effective use available resources. It was recognized that the existing planning system does not sufficiently interest enterprises in accepting high planning targets, in introducing organizational and technical innovations.

For the first time, the main ideas of the reform were promulgated in the article by Professor and Kharkiv State University E. G. Lieberman "Plan, profit, bonus" in the newspaper "Pravda" and his report "On improving planning and material incentives for work industrial enterprises"Sent to the Central Committee of the CPSU. Leading economists ac. V. S. Nemchinov, ac. S.G. Strumilin, experts of the USSR State Planning Committee, heads of enterprises, etc.
The article marked the beginning of an all-Union economic discussion in the press and a number of economic experiments that confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed measures. In the Western press and Sovietology, the concept of reforms was called Liebermanism.

As an alternative to the reform among the intelligentsia of the radical "technocratic" direction, the ideas of Academician V.M. Glushkov were considered, since 1962 he was developing a program of total informatization economic processes with the use of the OGAS system, which was supposed to be based on the emerging Unified State Network of Computing Centers (EGS CC).

The decisive argument was that Lieberman estimated the costs of carrying out his reform in the cost of the paper on which the corresponding decrees would be printed, and promised the first results in a few months. Kosygin, the most "tight-fisted" member of the Politburo, who knew how to count the people's penny, chose Lieberman's reform.

The main provisions of the reform

The reform, implemented after the removal from power of NS Khrushchev, was presented as a break with the manifestations of the Soviet economic policy in the second half of the 1950s - early 60s. "Subjectivism" and "projecting", the practice of administrative and volitional decisions. An increase in the scientific level of economic management based on the laws of the political economy of socialism was declared. The reform was carried out under the leadership of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A. N. Kosygin.

The reform was put into effect by a group of resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which extended its provisions to individual branches and sectors of the national economy:

"On improving industrial management, improving planning and strengthening economic incentives for industrial production" (Resolution of the September 1965 Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU)
"On improving planning and strengthening economic incentives for industrial production" (decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of October 4, 1965)
"Regulations on a socialist state production enterprise", approved by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on October 4, 1965
"On measures to further improve lending and settlements in the national economy and increase the role of credit in stimulating production" (Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of April 3, 1967)
"On the transfer of state farms and other state agricultural enterprises to full cost accounting" (April 13, 1967)
"On the transfer of enterprises of the Ministry of Civil Aviation to a new system of planning and economic incentives" (dated June 7, 1967)
"On the transfer of the railways of the Ministry of Railways to a new system of planning and economic incentives" (June 23, 1967)
"On the transfer of enterprises of the Ministry of the Navy to a new system of planning and economic incentives" (dated July 7, 1967)
"On the transfer of river transport enterprises of the Union republics to a new system of planning and economic incentives" (July 7, 1967)
"On the transfer of operational enterprises and production and technical communication departments of the system of the Ministry of Communications of the USSR to a new system of planning and economic incentives" (July 8, 1968)
"On improving planning and capital construction and on strengthening economic incentives construction production"(May 28, 1969)

The reform was a complex of five groups of measures:

"Communist flirtation with profits" Cover of Time magazine with material on economic reform in 1965.

1. The bodies of territorial economic management and planning were liquidated - the councils of the national economy, created in 1957, enterprises became the main economic unit. The system of sectoral management of industry was restored, all-Union, Union-republican and republican ministries and departments.
2. The number of directive planned indicators was reduced (from 30 to 9). The following indicators remained valid: the total volume of products in the current wholesale prices; the most important products in physical terms; the general wage fund; total amount profit and profitability, expressed as the ratio of profit to the amount of fixed assets and standardized working capital; payments to the budget and appropriations from the budget; total volume capital investments; implementation assignments new technology; the volume of supplies of raw materials, materials and equipment.
3. The economic independence of enterprises expanded. Enterprises were obliged to independently determine the detailed nomenclature and range of products, at the expense of own funds make investments in production, establish long-term contractual relations with suppliers and consumers, determine the number of personnel, the amount of its material incentives. For non-fulfillment of contractual obligations, enterprises were subject to financial sanctions, the importance of economic arbitration increased.
4. The key importance was attached to the integral indicators economic efficiency production - profit and profitability. At the expense of the profit, enterprises were able to form a number of funds - funds for the development of production, material incentives, social and cultural purposes, housing construction, others. The enterprises could use the funds at their discretion (of course, within the framework of the existing legislation).
5. Pricing policy: the wholesale selling price was supposed to provide the enterprise with a given profitability of production. Long-term norms were introduced - norms that are not subject to revision during a certain period planned cost products.

In agriculture, purchase prices for products increased by 1.5-2 times, preferential payments for an over-planned harvest were introduced, prices for spare parts and equipment decreased, and rates decreased. income tax on the peasants.

Reform propaganda poster

By Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR N 677 of 08/28/1974 for those living in countryside the general civil passport system was extended; according to the decree, the issuance of passports to "citizens of the USSR who had not been previously issued passports" had to be carried out "within the period from January 1, 1976 to December 31, 1981", in fact, in remote areas it was delayed until 1989.

The new system of national economic planning was enshrined in the 1977 Constitution of the USSR: “The economy of the USSR is a single national economic complex, covering all links of social production, distribution and exchange on the territory of the country. The management of the economy is carried out on the basis of state plans for economic and social development, taking into account sectoral and territorial principles, with a combination of centralized management with economic independence and initiative of enterprises, associations and other organizations. At the same time, economic accounting, profit, cost, and other economic levers and incentives are actively used "(Art. 16)

Reform implementation. "Golden Five-Year Plan"

Distribution of profits of enterprises before and after the reform

The main reform measures were put into effect during the 8th five-year plan - years. By the fall of new system 5.5 thousand enterprises worked (1/3 of industrial products, 45% of profits), by April 32 thousand enterprises (77% of production).

During the five-year period, record rates of economic growth were recorded. In - years. average annual growth rate national income in the USSR accounted for 6.1% (USA 3.1%, Japan 7.4%, Germany 3.4%, France 4.4%, Great Britain 2.2%). A number of large economic projects were carried out (the creation of a Unified Energy System, the introduction of automated control systems (ACS), the development of the civilian automotive industry, etc.). The growth rates of housing construction, the development of the social sphere, financed at the expense of enterprises, were high.

The eighth five-year plan was figuratively called "golden".

The reform had a pronounced effect of a one-time attraction of growth reserves: the velocity of circulation in the “commodity-money” phase increased, “storming” decreased, the rhythm of supplies and payments increased, and the use of fixed assets improved. Enterprises developed individual flexible incentive systems.

Reform development

Results and assessments

Structure foreign trade USSR in 1970

In modern historiography, the dominant point of view is the curtailment of the reform or its complete failure.

If in 1967 (at the height of the Kosygin reforms) 50.2 tons of gold were spent on the purchase of grain, then in 1972 - 458.2 tons (!) (These data were found by historians A. Korotkov and A. Stepanov in the archives of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU ). These were not reforms, but the road to nowhere ...

Among the reasons for the "choking" of the reform are usually the resistance of the conservative part of the Politburo of the Central Committee (N.V. Podgorny took a negative position in relation to the reform), as well as the tightening of the internal political course under the influence of the Prague Spring of 1968.
According to the memoirs of N.K.Baibakov, the internal rivalry between A.N.Kosygin and N.A.Tikhonov played a particularly negative role. Disagreements between the Council of Ministers, the State Planning Committee of the USSR, on the one hand, and the Ministry of Defense, on the other, were counterproductive. Marshal (D.F. Ustinov) advocated constant growth military spending, which Kosygin and Baybakov opposed the increase. An unfavorable “disincentive” for the development of reform efforts could have been the growth in revenues from energy exports, enabling the conservative Soviet leadership of the late 1970s. support economic growth and satisfy domestic consumer demand due to the rapid increase in imports.

A. N. Kosygin is credited with the words spoken in a conversation with the head of the government of Czechoslovakia Lubomir Strougal in the city: “Nothing is left. Everything collapsed. All work has been stopped, and the reforms have fallen into the hands of people who do not want them at all ... The reform is being torpedoed. The people with whom I worked out the materials of the congress have already been dismissed, and completely different people have been called in. And I already do not expect anything. "

In some studies recent years the activities of SOFE supporters are considered as a key factor that hindered the development of the reform.

Assessing the results of the reform, in particular, the phenomenon of "slowdown in growth rates" in the 1970s - 80s. a number of factors should be taken into account that influenced the rate and quality of economic development:

Objectively, in the course of the reform in the USSR, an attempt was made to move to an intensive quality of economic growth, the very concept of economic efficiency created the conditions for further decentralization of economic life and the creation of a post-industrial economy.

Notes (edit)

1. History socialist economy THE USSR. - T.7. - M.,. - S. 93.
2. Materials of the XXII Congress of the CPSU - M., 1961. - P. 387.
3. Lieberman E.G. Plan, profit, premium. // Truth. -. - 9th of September . (the article was reprinted many times in the regional media)
4. d. at the enterprises "Bolshevichka" (Moscow), "Mayak" (Gorky); mines of the Western Coal Basin (Ukrainian SSR)
5. http://www.computer-museum.ru/galglory/27.htm; http://www.icfcst.kiev.ua/museum/GL_HALL2/MAIN-1020_5_r.html
6. Party and government decisions on economic issues. - T.5. - M., 1968. - S. 640-645.
7. Party and government decisions on economic issues. - T.5. - M., 1968 .-- S. 643.
8. Party and government decisions on economic issues. - T.6. - M., 1968 .-- S. 376-388.
9. Party and government decisions on economic issues. - T.6. - M., 1968 .-- S. 408-411.
10. Party and government decisions on economic issues. - T.6. - M., 1968. - S. 462-466.
11. Party and government decisions on economic issues. - T.6. - M., 1968 .-- S. 466-469.
12. Party and government decisions on economic issues. - T.6. - M., 1968 .-- S. 469-472.
13. Party and government decisions on economic issues. - T.7. - M., 1970 .-- S. 20 - 24.
14. Party and government decisions on economic issues. - T.7. - M., 1970 .-- S. 431-447.

Economic reform of 1965 in the USSR, (in the USSR it is known as Kosygin reform, in the West as Lieberman reform) - the reform of economic management and planning, carried out in 1965-1970. Characterized by the introduction economic methods management, expanding the economic independence of enterprises, associations and organizations, the widespread use of material incentives. Associated with the name of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A. N. Kosygin.

All-Union Economic Discussion 1962-1964

Traditionally, reform has been associated with increased complexity economic ties, which reduced the efficiency of directive planning (in 1966 the industry of the USSR included more than three hundred industries, 47 thousand enterprises, 12.8 thousand primary construction organizations), and with a desire to make fuller use of the intensive factors of economic growth. The latter was achieved by increasing labor productivity through improving its culture, intensity and organization, as well as the efficient use of available resources. It was recognized that the existing planning system does not sufficiently interest enterprises in accepting high planning targets, in introducing organizational and technical innovations.

For the first time, the main ideas of the reform were promulgated in an article by a professor at the Kharkov Engineering and Economic Institute and Kharkov state university E. G. Lieberman "Plan, profit, premium" in the newspaper "Pravda" and his report "On improving planning and material incentives for the work of industrial enterprises", sent to the Central Committee of the CPSU. Leading economists ac. V. S. Nemchinov, ac. S.G. Strumilin, experts of the USSR State Planning Committee, heads of enterprises, etc.

The article marked the beginning of an all-Union economic discussion in the press and a number of economic experiments that confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed measures. In the Western press and Sovietology, the concept of reforms was called Liebermanism.

As an alternative to the reform among the intelligentsia of the radical "technocratic" direction, the ideas of Academician V.M. Glushkov were considered, since 1962 he had been developing a program for the total informatization of economic processes using the OGAS system, which was supposed to be based on the emerging Unified State Network of Computing Centers (EGS CC) ...

The main provisions of the reform

The reform, implemented after the removal from power of NS Khrushchev, was presented as a break with the manifestations of the Soviet economic policy in the second half of the 1950s - early 60s. "Subjectivism" and "projecting", the practice of administrative and volitional decisions. An increase in the scientific level of economic management based on the laws of the political economy of socialism was declared. The reform was carried out under the leadership of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A. N. Kosygin.

The reform was put into effect by a group of resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which extended its provisions to individual branches and sectors of the national economy:

"On improving planning and capital construction and on strengthening economic incentives for construction production" (May 28, 1969)

The reform was a complex of five groups of measures:

1. The bodies of territorial economic management and planning were liquidated - the councils of the national economy, created in 1957, enterprises became the main economic unit. The system of sectoral management of industry was restored, all-Union, Union-republican and republican ministries and departments.
2. The number of directive planned indicators was reduced (from 30 to 9). The following indicators remained valid: the total volume of products in the current wholesale prices; the most important products in physical terms; the general wage fund; the total amount of profit and profitability, expressed as the ratio of profit to the amount of fixed assets and standardized working capital; payments to the budget and appropriations from the budget; the total volume of capital investments; assignments for the introduction of new technology; the volume of supplies of raw materials, materials and equipment.
3. The economic independence of enterprises expanded. Enterprises were obliged to independently determine the detailed nomenclature and range of products, invest in production at their own expense, establish long-term contractual relations with suppliers and consumers, determine the number of personnel, the amount of its material incentives. For non-fulfillment of contractual obligations, enterprises were subject to financial sanctions, the importance of economic arbitration increased.
4. The key importance was attached to the integral indicators of the economic efficiency of production - profit and profitability. At the expense of the profits, enterprises were able to form a number of funds - funds for the development of production, material incentives, social and cultural purposes, housing, etc. Enterprises could use the funds at their discretion (of course, within the framework of the existing legislation).
5. Pricing policy: the wholesale selling price was supposed to provide the enterprise with a given profitability of production. Long-term norms were introduced - norms of the planned production cost that are not subject to revision during a certain period.

In agriculture, purchase prices for products increased 1.5-2 times, preferential payments for over-planned harvests were introduced, prices for spare parts and equipment decreased, and income tax rates for peasants decreased.

The new system of national economic planning was enshrined in Art. 16 of the Constitution of the USSR of 1977:

Reform implementation. "Golden Five-Year Plan"

The main reform measures were put into effect during the 8th five-year plan, 1965-1970. By the fall of 1967, 5,500 enterprises operated under the new system (1/3 of industrial output, 45% of profits), by April 1969, 32,000 enterprises (77% of production).

During the five-year period, record rates of economic growth were recorded. In 1966-1979. the average annual growth rate of national income in the USSR was 6.1% (USA 3.1%, Japan 7.4%, Germany 3.4%, France 4.4%, Great Britain 2.2%). A number of large economic projects were carried out (creation of the Unified Energy System, implementation automated systems management (ACS), the development of civil automotive industry, etc.). The growth rates of housing construction, the development of the social sphere, financed at the expense of enterprises, were high.

The eighth five-year plan was figuratively called "golden".

The reform had a pronounced effect of a one-time attraction of growth reserves: the velocity of circulation in the “commodity-money” phase increased, “storming” decreased, the rhythm of supplies and payments increased, and the use of fixed assets improved. Enterprises developed individual flexible incentive systems.

Reform development

In the 1970s. The Council of Ministers and the State Planning Committee of the USSR make decisions designed to correct the revealed negative aspects of the reformed economic system - the tendency to rise in prices, the desire to use the most costly schemes of economic relations (including sacrificing innovative development), which ensure the highest profitability.

By the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of June 21, 1971 "On some measures to improve planning and economic stimulation of industrial production", starting from the five-year plan for 1971-1975, directive tasks for the growth of labor productivity were restored, the volume of new products was allocated in the sales tasks ...

In the 1970s. the multistage industrial management system was replaced by a two-, three-tier (ministry - association - enterprise; ministry - self-supporting enterprise - mine administration). Accordingly, management and planning functions were redistributed and decentralized.

In 1970 there were 608 associations (6.2% of employed personnel, 6.7% of products sold), in 1977 there were 3,670 associations (45% of personnel, 44.3% of products sold), including: ZIL, AZLK, Voskresenskcement, Electrosila, AvtoGaz, AvtoVAZ, KamAZ, Uralmash, Positron, Bolshevichka.

The newly formed associations and combines operated on the basis of cost accounting, carried out the main investment activity, cooperated with the economic ties of enterprises. The ministries were assigned the role of a conductor of the general scientific and technical policy. The number of forms of documentation and reporting indicators was sharply reduced. The reorganization was accompanied by a significant release of management personnel.

The next group of regulations

a new target indicator net (normative) production, taking into account the newly created value - wages plus average profit, its task was to stop the trend towards rising prices and costs. Incentive markups were introduced to the price of new and high-quality products and stable long-term standards for economic incentive funds. The practice of drawing up target complex scientific, technical, economic and social programs for the development of regions and industrial-territorial complexes was expanding, the principle of long-term standards was developed.

In the post-reform period, the economy of the USSR is undergoing a pronounced shift towards intensive factors of economic growth. Increased productivity was the main driver of growth social labor and the saving of living labor, that is, the role of the main extensive factor - the increase in the number of employed, which was characteristic of the 1930s - 1950s - decreased.

In the second half of the 1960s - 70s. the reform was criticized "from the left" by a group of scientists, authors of the so-called. SOFE - systems for the optimal functioning of the economy. These included the director of the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (CEMI), ac. N.P. Fedorenko, A.I. Katsenelinboygen, S.S.Shatalin, I. Ya.Birman, supported by Academician G.A. Arbatov). The authors of SOFE, as an alternative to the reform, proposed to create a "constructive" economic and mathematical model of a socialist economy. As an alternative to "descriptive" political economy, SOFE was supposed to completely supplant commodity production, replacing it with a system of economic and cybernetic operations. For the first time, SOFE was presented at a scientific-theoretical conference of the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1967. SOFE found support in CEMI, the Institute of the USA and Canada, the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the opponents were the Council of Ministers, the State Planning Committee, the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences (prof. Ya. A. Kronrod, Prof. N. A. Tsagolov, Academician L. I. Abalkin).

The failure of SOFE was recognized by an enlarged meeting of the State Planning Committee of the USSR with the participation of leading economists in 1970. Politicizing the issue, the "sophists" blamed Kosygin for flirting with the West, unforgivable concessions to him, "betrayal" of socialism, "dragging" ideas alien to the people onto Soviet soil than contributed to the inhibition and a certain attenuation of reform efforts.

Rollback of reforms, results and assessments

In modern historiography, the dominant point of view is the curtailment of the reform or its complete failure.

Among the reasons for the "choking" of the reform are usually the resistance of the conservative part of the Politburo of the Central Committee (N.V. Podgorny took a negative position in relation to the reform), as well as the tightening of the internal political course under the influence of the Prague Spring of 1968.

According to the memoirs of N.K.Baibakov, the internal rivalry between A.N.Kosygin and N.A.Tikhonov played a particularly negative role. Disagreements between the Council of Ministers, the State Planning Committee of the USSR, on the one hand, and the Ministry of Defense, on the other, were counterproductive. Marshal (DF Ustinov) advocated a constant increase in military spending, which Kosygin and Baybakov opposed. An unfavorable “disincentive” for the development of reform efforts could have been the growth in revenues from energy exports, enabling the conservative Soviet leadership of the late 1970s. support economic growth and meet domestic consumer demand by rapidly increasing imports.

A. N. Kosygin is credited with the words spoken in a conversation with the head of the government of Czechoslovakia Lubomir Strougal in 1971: “There is nothing left. Everything collapsed. All work has been stopped, and the reforms have fallen into the hands of people who do not want them at all ... The reform is being torpedoed. The people with whom I worked out the materials of the congress have already been dismissed, and completely different people have been called in. And I already do not expect anything. "

In some studies of recent years, the activities of SOFE supporters are considered as a key factor that hindered the development of the reform.

Assessing the results of the reform, in particular, the phenomenon of "slowdown in growth rates" in the 1970s - 80s. a number of factors should be taken into account that influenced the rate and quality of economic development:

• Exhaustion of extensive growth factors, primarily due to the depletion of reserves of a mobile workforce and a decrease in the economic return from increased employment (due to technological stagnation caused by the lack of incentive to reduce costs originally laid down in the reform, and the inflexible planned nature of the service sector)
• the need for direct and indirect subsidies for ineffective enterprises, industries and economies of certain territories, caused by the strengthening of departmental and territorial lobbying and the desire of the union leadership to avoid unpopular decisions
• social programs 1970s (reduction of working hours, growth of income of the population)
• costly programs for the economic development of Siberia and the Far East, which did not yield the expected gross profit in the short term.
• extremely costly development program armed forces Brezhnev-Grechko-Gorshkov
• loans from the USSR to third world countries in the framework of the struggle for influence in the world (Africa, the Middle East conflict, etc.)

Objectively, in the course of the reform in the USSR, an attempt was made to transition to an intensive (as opposed to extensive) quality of economic growth, the very concept of economic efficiency (expressed in the gross profit of an enterprise) created conditions for further decentralization of economic life and the creation of postindustrial economy.

A number of authors regard this reform as based on right-Trotskyist and syndicalist (“enterprise independence”) ideas, as a de facto regression to state capitalism in the organization of socialist production, and therefore it is recognized that it was natural and initially doomed to failure.

The implementation of the economic reform of 1965, sometimes called the "Kosygin reform", began with a transition to a new administrative centralization, the abolition of economic councils and the restoration of central industrial ministries, liquidated by NS. Khrushchev. New large state committees were created (Goskomtsen, Gossnab, State Committee for Science and Technology), the division of party bodies into industrial and agricultural ones was canceled. Enterprises received some autonomy and independence.
The main goal of the reform was to increase the efficiency of the national economy, accelerate its growth and, on this basis, improve the living standards of the population. The general plan was to use economic (profit, prices, finances, material incentives, etc.) along with the administrative levers of economic management.
The initial idea of ​​the economic reform was the position that it was impossible to solve all national economic issues from the center, which motivated the need for decentralization. There were only five directively planned indicators: the volume of sales, the main range of manufactured products, the wages fund, profit and profitability, relationships with the budget. The main directions in the economic reform of 1965 were: an attempt to transfer enterprises to self-financing; assessment of the work of enterprises not in terms of gross output, but according to the results of its implementation and profit; the creation of a part of the profit (10-12%) of funds for economic incentives (material incentives, social and cultural events and housing construction); element embedding wholesale trade directly between manufacturers, i.e. without participation state structures, accustomed to planning and allocating everything according to limits.
The implementation of the reform gave an impetus to the development of the economy. In the period 1966-1970. in comparison with the previous five-year period, there was an acceleration in the growth rates of production volumes, national income, and labor productivity. 1,900 enterprises were built and reconstructed, industrial production increased by 50% in the whole country. It was in the eighth five-year period that the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station was launched, the development of the oil and gas resources of Tyumen began, VAZ cars were built and began to produce in Togliatti, scientific and industrial associations appeared.
However, according to modern economists, the reform was doomed to failure due to a number of reasons. The most significant of them were:
- inconsistency and half-heartedness contained directly in the very idea of ​​the reform. The combination of economic principles with a rigidly centralized planned economy, as the world and domestic experience shows, gives only a short-term effect, and then the dominance of administrative principles and the suppression of economic ones occurs again;
- the non-comprehensive nature of the reform. There was no talk of any kind of democratization of production relations, changes in forms of ownership and restructuring of the political system;
- Weak personnel training and the security of the reform. The inertia of the thinking of the leading economic cadres, the pressure on them of the former stereotypes, the lack of creative courage and initiative among the direct executors of the transformations determined the half-heartedness of the reform concept and doomed it in the end to failure;
- opposition to the reform on the part of the party apparatus and its leaders (L.I.Brezhnev, N.V. Podgorny, Y. building;
- the Czechoslovak events of 1968, where similar innovations led to the beginning of the dismantling of the political system, which greatly frightened the Soviet leadership.
The economic reform, being inconsistent already at the design stage, was not carried out properly. She was unable to reverse the unfavorable trends in economic development country, and the efforts of the party apparatus brought it to naught. At the same time, the reform of 1965 showed the limits and limitations of socialist reformism.