Forecasting, Economic, scientific prevision of the most probable changes in the state, structure and dynamics of the economy, of social requirements and production possibilities, of the trends of technical progress, of the size and composition of the population, etc. Scientific and technological forecasts play an important role in drafting the 20-year comprehensive programme for scientific and technical progress of the USSR. Economic forecasting is a preliminary stage which helps determine the key directions of the country’s economic and social development for 10 years. Unlike planning, forecasting does not contain directives or concrete assignments. The system of forecast indicators also differs from planned indicators: it includes indices characterising demographic processes, the probable consequences of the measures mapped out in the long-term plan, etc. Forecasting makes it possible to foresee the social, economic and production problems that will have to be dealt with in the period being considered to achieve the aims of social development. Forecasts, especially those of scientific and technical progress, provide guidelines that are indispensable for successful economic management. Foreseeing the future state of the economy facilitates the choice of the most rational ways to develop it. Depending on their content, forecasts are divided into forecasts of scientific and technical progress, natural resources, demographic processes, and social and economic development. In terms of the scale of the object forecast, there are economic, sectoral and regional forecasts. Methodologically, scientific forecasting is based on the Marxist-Leninist theory of social development. Only knowledge of objective economic laws and their operation in specific historical conditions can be a reliable and adequate practical foundation for foreseeing changes that may occur in socio-economic development in the coming 15 or 20 years. The natural laws of development are also taken into account. Various methods are used in forecasting, the most promising of them being modelling of economic, demographic and other processes. The first scientifically-based forecasts were worked out in the Soviet Union on Lenin’s instruction when the State Plan for the Electrification of Russia was drafted. Subsequently, forecasts were used during the 145 preliminary stages of drafting national economic plans. Periodic forecasts of the fuel and energy balance, changes in the population size and composition, scientific and technical progress, economic and other processes are used in drawing up the state economic and social development plans, in elaborating comprehensive programmes on major economic, industrial and social problems, and measures of environmental protection. Joint forecasting in the major fields of the economy, science and technology are made by the CMEA member-countries in accordance with the Comprehensive Programme for Cooperation adopted in 1971. In the capitalist countries, forecasting is limited by private property relations. Forecasting methods amount to extrapolation, expert estimates, and mathematical formulas divorced from the social content of the phenomena and processes concerned. For these reasons the forecasts of bourgeois futurologists lack precision and reliability. The dominance of the whole people’s ownership of the means of production and the planned development of the socialist economy make it possible to predict the future with a high degree of reliability.