Cost-Accounting Unit, an economic cell of socialist social production. Planned socialist production is made up of various structural units performing certain production functions. A production enterprise (amalgamation, combine) is a basic structural unit. Centralised planned management of the entire economy and of its individual economic units, which have certain material interests and are economically independent, is the most important condition for the normal functioning of the socialist economy. The nature of socialism preconditions the material incentive o/ individual workers and work collectives which are looking for the best ways of fulfilling society’s planned targets. Enterprises produce different commodities, and their relations with society take the form of commodity relations which involve state-provided means of production, socially necessary expenditures, use value, the value of the items, and the use of products for reproduction. This system of economic relations finds its expression in the cos? accounting. The results of the enterprise’s economic activity depend on the work of its units: main and auxiliary workshops, sections, teams and services. The relations between the production units and the enterprise as a whole, which materially stimulate the thriftiness of direct and materialised labour, comprise the essence of infra-plant calculus. The cost- accounting mode of work of a production team becomes more and more important (see Team Organisation of Labour). The system makes every team member more responsible for fulfilling production plan assignments and more interested in the results 71 of the work of the entire collective. The efficiency of enterprises largely depends on the activity of the economic units coordinating them. In the USSR, allUnion (republican) industrial associations operate in the economic branches on the basis of the cost-accounting system. They are vested with broad economic rights and duties, have extensive latitude in their work, and use economic levers both within the framework of the amalgamation and in their relations with suppliers and consumers within the framework of the single state plan. Branch ministries also operate on cost accounting; the whole branch (ministry) works on the costaccounting basis and makes all its expenditures from the earnings received by the branch and the profits which the state leaves at the ministry’s disposal. A limited number of indicators—the volume of realised output within the range set by the economic plan, growth of labour productivity, fulfilment of the obligations to the state budget of the USSR—have been established for the cost-accounting branch units. The economic independence of various ministries is growing together with economic responsibility for their decisions concerning the activity of production and industrial associations. The transfer of industrial associations and branch ministries to cost accounting ensures that the enterprises, associations and ministries have common interests and increases the efficiency of social production. A system of indicators approved by the ministries in the annual and fiveyear plans has been worked out for the llth Five-Year Plan period. This will add the force of a directive to the plan assignments and ensure their fulfilment. A united science and technology development fund of the USSR has been established in the ministries and departments and centralised economic incentive funds organised.