and the Tasks of the Party’s Economic Policy
p NATIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN 1966-1970
p In the economic sphere the main result of the five-year period is that the scale of the national economy has been 359 substantially increased, its development accelerated, and qualitative indicators improved.
p The Directives of the 23rd Congress have been successfully fulfilled in the main economic targets. The national income was to have increased by 38-41 per cent; it has in fact grown by 41 per cent. Industrial production, with a target of 47-50 per cent, has increased by 50 per cent. The targets set by the Directives for the key indicators relating to the raising of the working people’s living standard have been overfulfilled.
p On the whole, the eighth five-year period has yielded considerably greater results than the preceding one.
Key Indicators of National Economic Development in the Seventh and the Eighth Five-Year Periods
(comparable prices; increment in thousand million rubles and growth in per cent) Seventh five-year period (1961-1965) Eighth five-year period (1966-1970) Absolute increment 1965 %% of 1960 Absolute increment 1970 %% of 1965 Aggregate social product 113 137 175 142 National income used for consumption and accumulation 45 132 77 141 Industrial production 84 151 125 15C of which Group A Group B 66 18 158 136 91 34 151 149 Agricultural production ( annual average output as compared with the preceding period) 7.1 112 14.0 121 Capital investment (for the five years) 77 145 104 142 Freight turnover for all types of transport (thousand million ton-km) 878 147 1,061 138 Retail trade 26.1 134 50.2 148p The country’s national income which went into consumption and accumulation increased at an average rate of 7.1 360 per cent a year, as against 5 7 per cent in the preceding period. Productivity of social labour—a key indicator of efficiency in production—has increased by 37 per cent, as against 29 per cent in the seventh five-year period.
p Heavy industiy, the basis of the economy, has been further developed. The branches which determine technical progress—electric power, the chemical and the petrochemical industries, engineering, especially radio electronics and instrument-making—have been developing at a much faster rate The share of the products turned out by these branches has increased from 28 to 33 per cent of total industrial output. The light and the food industries have been developing rapidly. The output of consumer goods in the five years has gone up by 49 per cent. To illustrate the present scale of production, one need merely say that industrial output in 1970 alone was approximately double the industrial output for all the prewar five-year periods taken together. (Applause.}
p The following table gives an idea of the growth of industrial output in 1966-1970.
361p In the past five-year period, considerable successes have been achieved in agricultural development. For a number of icasons, this branch has been and for the time being remains the most difficult and complex sector of our economy. That is why it is a source of satisfaction that the Party’s work, the efforts of our working people in the countryside and workers in the industries concerned have been crowned with major achievements.
p Annual average farm output has increased by 21 per cent, as compared with 12 per cent in the preceding five-year period. The most substantial shifts have taken place in the production of grain, whose annual average gross output has increased by 37 million tons, or 30 per cent. The production of meat, milk, eggs and other produce has been markedly increased.
The following table gives an idea of the annual average output of major farm products:
million tons 1966 1970 %% of 1961 1965 1961-1965 1966-1170 Gram 130 3 167 5 129 Raw cotton 5 0 6 1 122 Sugar beet (for factory processing) 59 2 81 0 137 Sunflower seeds 5 1 b 4 126 Flax fibre 0 41 0 46 112 Potatoes 81 6 94 8 116 Vegetables 16 9 19 3 114 Meat (slaughter weight) 9 3 11 6 124 Milk 64 7 80 5 124 Eggs (thousand millions) 28 7 35 8 124 Wool (thousand tons) 362 397 110 1965 1970 1°70 %% cf 1965 Electric power (thousand million kwh) 507 740 146 Oil, including liquefied petroleum gas (million tons) 243 353 145 Coal (million tons) 578 624 108 Gas (thousand million m3) 129 200 154 Steel (million tons) 91 116 127 Rolled stock (million tons) 71 92 130 Output of engineering and metal work ing industries (thousand million rubles) 51 88 174 Mineral fertilisers, in conventional units (million tons) 31 55 177 Synthetic resins and plastics (thousand tons) 803 1,672 208 Cement (million tons) 72 95 132 Fabric s, all types (thousand million m2) 7 5 8 9 118 Garments (thousand million rubles) 9 0 15 9 177 Leather footwear (million pairs) 486 676 139 Radio and television sets (million units) 8 8 14 5 164 Domestic refngciators (million units) 1 7 4 1 247p The 1970 results need to be dealt with separately. More than 186 million tons of grain and 6.9 million tons of raw cotton were received in the country. We have never yet had such high gross output. (Applause.) Grain averaged 15.6 centners, and cotton 25 centners per hectare. (Applause.)
p The five-year period target for freight turnover has been 362 fulfilled. Capital construction was proceeding on a large scale. Almost 1,900 large industrial enterprises and installations have been commissioned. A good reserve has been created for a further build-up of production capacities in the early years of the current five-year period.
p The location of the country’s productive forces has been improved. The economic potential of Siberia, the Far East, Central Asia and Kazakhstan has markedly increased. The national economy of all the republics has made a stride forward, and the contribution of each to the fulfilment of all-Union tasks has grown. This means that the economic foundation of the union and brotherhood of all our peoples has been enlarged.
p The past five-year period has been an important one in the fulfilment of social tasks. The changes that have taken place in social relations will be dealt with below. At this point I should like to dwell on some questions connected with the people’s rising living standards. In the five years, real incomes per head of population have increased by 33 per cent, as compared with the 30 per cent provided for by the Directives of the Party’s 23rd Congress, and the 19 per cent in the preceding five-year period.
p You are aware, comrades, that in this five-year period, the minimum wage for workers and office employees was raised to 60 rubles a month. The average wage of workers and office employees for the country has increased by 26 per cent. Collective farmers’ incomes from social production have increased by 42 per cent. Guaranteed remuneration for labour has been introduced, the pension age has been lowered, and the payment of sick benefits and disability allowances has been introduced for members of collective farms.
p In the five years, social consumption funds have increased by 50 per cent, to almost 64 thousand million rubles in 1970.
p The growth of retail trade is a key indicator of the level of living standards. In 1966-1970, it came to 48 per cent, with the structure of consumption being considerably improved. Compared with 1965, consumption of meat per person increased in 1970 by 17 per cent, milk and milk products by 22 per cent, eggs by 23 per cent, fish and fish products by 33 per cent, and sugar by 14 per cent, with a simultaneous reduction in the consumption of bread and potatoes. The sale to the population of cultural and household articles, 363 especially of consumer durables—radios, television sets, washing machines and refrigerators, and so on—has increased.
p Everybody knows on what scale we have tackled and how perseveringly we are working on the housing problem. The state has spent nearly 60 thousand million rubles under this head. More than 500 million sq m of housing have been put up in the past five years. This means that an equivalent of more than 50 large cities with one million population each were built in the country. Most of the family house- warmings were celebrated in separate apartments with modern amenities.
p The systems of public education and health have made good headway. The Soviet people’s health and longevity are an object of the Party’s and the state’s constant concern. In 1966-70 we trained 151,000 doctors, or 22,000 more than in the preceding five years. The network of medical institutions was expanded considerably.
p For some years, most Soviet workers and office employees have had a five-day work week with two days off. Paid annual leaves have been lengthened for a considerable part of the working people.
p As you see, the people’s standard of living has risen quite substantially in the past five years. Permit us to express the trust that these achievements will be a source of fresh inspiration for Soviet people, arousing their desire to work still more effectively for the country’s good, for the good of our heroic people! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)
p Summing up the results of the past five years and giving their due to the successes achieved, the Party is aware of the shortcomings in the economic field, of the unresolved problems. It should be noted, first of all, that the production targets for some important items were not fully met.
p There were also delays in expanding production capacity in the chemical industry, machine-tools, the light and a few other industries. Many ministries have not fulfilled the plans for introducing new equipment and have fallen short of the labour productivity targets. The plans for supplying agriculture with electricity and machinery have not been fully met.
p While the average wage increase targets were surpassed, the rates and basic wages of some categories have not been 364 increased as envisaged in the plan. Though considerable, accretion in the production of some food products, especially meat, and of consumer goods, is still below the demand, sometimes creating shortages in the shops.
p These difficulties are partly traceable to objective causes of an external and internal order. But, naturally, at this Congress we should focus our attention especially on the causes relating to deficiencies in the work of the economic, government and Party organs, to shortcomings in planning, in producing and assimilating new equipment, and in making use of available reserves.
p However, the shortcomings and unresolved problems do not obscure the main point—the basic positive results of our five-year plan. The Party and people have coped well with a big and complicated task, that of combining continued economic development and reinforcement of the country’s defences with a considerably greater growth of the living standard of the working people. (Prolonged applause.}
p The successes of the Soviet people in economic development are of great political significance. They have led to a further consolidation of the socialist system in our country, to still closer cohesion of the entire Soviet people round the Party. (Applause.) They have contributed greatly to the common cause of augmenting the economic strength of the socialist states and strengthening the positions of the world socialist system in the economic competition with capitalism.
p Comrades, defining the trend in the country’s economic development, the 23rd Congress not only approved the main indicators for the Eighth Five-Year Plan, but also raised a number of important questions of long-term economic policy. Resolving these, the Central Committee, acting on the instructions of the Congress, also took steps to remedy the shortcomings of the preceding period in the management of agriculture and industry.
p We can report to the Congress that much has been done in the past five years to improve economic management. The Central Committee plenary meetings, CC decisions and those of the Council of Ministers of the USSR resolved major economic problems. Special mention should be made of the importance of the May (1966) and July (1970) Plenary Meetings, which worked out a comprehensive long-term development programme for agriculture, and of the 365 December (1969) Plenary Meeting, which discussed fundamental questions of the development of our economy, such as the ways to enhance the effectiveness of production and improve management. Summing up the results of all this work, it may be said that the Party has made tangible progress in the period under review in studying and conceptualising a number of the biggest and most complicated questions of its economic policy.
p The Central Committee considers it necessary to note the increase in the creative activity of local Party organisations and committees. The Party organisations of many republics, territories and regions made important economic suggestions of nationwide significance to the Central Committee. These were studied and taken into account when framing national economic decisions.
p It is an important result of the Party’s work in the period under review that Party, government, economic and tradeunion cadres and the masses of working people have begun to look more deeply into economic matters, that they show a better understanding of our problems and the ways of solving them.
p The country’s economic achievements are the result of selfless work in industry, agriculture, transport and building, science and culture, of the work of all the peoples of our multinational country. On behalf of the Congress, permit me to congratulate the working class, the collective farmers, the intelligentsia, all the working people of the Soviet Union, on their great victories in labour! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)
p
THE SPECIFICS OF THE PRESENT STAGE
IN THE COUNTRY’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
AND THE TASKS OF THE NEW FIVE-YEAR PLAN
p Comrades, V. I. Lenin stressed that the difficulty and art of politics consist in taking into account the specifics of the tasks of each period, the specifics of the conditions in which the Party operates. This approach is also immensely important in working out the economic policy, which must take into account the main features of each stage in the country’s development.
p In our country, it will be recalled, socialism triumphed back in the latter half of the thirties. This was followed by 366 more than three decades of the Soviet people’s heroic labour and struggle. Our economy of that time and our presentday economy are based on the same type of relations of production, on the same economic laws, the laws of socialism. However, there are unmistakable important new features that distinguish the modern economy from the economy of the late thirties.
p An immeasurably higher level has been achieved in the national economy, in socialist social relations, the culture and the consciousness of the broad masses. The developed socialist society to which Lenin referred in 1918 as to the future of our country has been built by the selfless labour of the Soviet people. This has enabled us to tackle in practice the great task set by the Party Programme, by its latest congresses—that of building the material and technical basis of communism.
p While discussing at this Congress the fundamental aspects of the Party’s economic policy for the coming period, we should pay attention to some of the specific features of the present stage in our economic development.
p The most important of these is the economy’s entirely new magnitude. Immense economic strength has been built up, based on a versatile industry and large-scale socialist agriculture, advanced science and skilled cadres of workers, specialists and managers, an economy that daily produces a social product worth nearly 2 thousand million rubles, that is, ten times more than at the end of the thirties.
p The Party takes this enormous growth of the country’s economic power into account in its economic activity. What does this mean in concrete terms? First and foremost, it means a considerable growth of our possibilities. These days we set ourselves and effectuate tasks of which we could only dream in the preceding stages.
p At the same time, in the present conditions the demands which society puts on the economy are rapidly increasing along with the economic possibilities. In the early stages of building socialism, it will be recalled, we were compelled to concentrate on the top priorities, on which the very existence of the young Soviet state depended. Now the situation is changing. Not only do we wish to—for we have always wished it—but we can and must deal simultaneously with a broader set of problems.
367p While securing resources for continued economic growth, while technically re-equipping production, and investing enormously in science and education, we must at the same time concentrate more and more energy and means on tasks relating to the improvement of the Soviet people’s wellbeing. While breaking through in one sector or another, be it ever so important, we can no longer afford any drawnout lag in any of the others.
p The high degree of economic development achieved by our country has yet another important effect: the demands on planning, guidance and economic management techniques are rising substantially. The interdependence of all the economic links is enhancing, adding to the importance of long-term planning, of forging a system of inter-industry connections, and of improving material supplies.
p Important specific features of the present stage of the country’s economic development are also traceable to the rapidly unfolding scientific and technical revolution. Socialism, the planned socialist economy offer the broadest scope for the all-sided progress of science and technology. However, the scientific and technical revolution requires the improvement of many sides of our economic activity. In other words, it is a huge force favourable for socialism, but one that has to be properly mastered.
p Some of the specific features of the present historical stage are also shaped by serious changes in the external conditions. The most important of these, as we have noted, is the unfolding process of the economic integration of the socialist countries, and in accomplishing many of our economic tasks we must take that process into account. We must also take into account the considerably greater role these days of such an area of the class struggle between socialism and capitalism as the economic and technicoscientific competition of the two world systems.
p Those are some of the important features of the present stage in the country’s economic development. Translated into political tasks, we could describe them briefly as follows: the vast scale of the national economy, the greater economic possibilities and social requirements pose the imperative of greatly improving the standard of all our economic work, substantially raising the effectiveness of our economy, turning our entire vast economy into a still better working, well-geared mechanism. (Applause.}
368p In all things, we were always helped by our revolutionary will and breadth of vision, by the Party’s skill in mobilising the energy of the millions for the fulfilment of constructive tasks, by the labour enthusiasm of the working class, the collective farmers and the intelligentsia. It is more than ever necessary now to combine this great force still more closely with systematic and painstaking organisational work, with a consistently scientific approach to economic management, with rigorous self-discipline and all-round efficiency. (Applause.)
p Comrades, the above circumstances were taken into account by the Central Committee in drafting so important a political document as the Directives for the new five-year plan.
p The Ninth Five-Year Plan is sure to be an important stage in Soviet society’s further advance to communism, in building its material and technical basis, in augmenting the country’s economic and defensive might. The main task of the Five-Year Plan is to secure a considerable rise in the living standard and cultural level of the people on the basis of high rates of growth of socialist production, increase in its effectiveness, scientific and technical progress and accelerated growth of the productivity of labour.
p In the coming five years the national income is to be increased 37-40 per cent, with the consumption fund going up 40 and the accumulation fund 37 per cent. Industrial output will rise 42-46 and the average annual agricultural output 20-22 per cent, while real per capita incomes will go up by nearly one-third.
p Inasmuch as Comrade A. N. Kosygin will deliver the report on the Directives for the Five-Year Economic Development Plan of the USSR for 1971-1975, permit me to dwell on just the three basic questions of the Party’s economic policy in the period ahead.
p To begin with, the question of the main aims on which the Party is orienting the development of Soviet economy.
p Further, the question of the sources of growth, the resources that must be mobilised for the further rapid rise of social production.
Lastly, the question of improving the mechanism of economic management in order to secure successful economic growth.
Notes