Management of Socialist Production, purposeful influence on the development of the economy and its components based on the knowledge of objective economic laws to improve the efficiency of social production and to raise living standards. Once public ownership of the means of production has been established, the object of management is no longer a single company, as is the case under capitalism, but the entire economy, including all its spheres and divisions such as production, distribution, exchange (1) and consumption, sectors (branches), economic regions, and enterprises. It is through the system of national economic management that planned, balanced development of socialist production becomes a reality and the objectives of economic policies pursued by the communist and workers’ parties of the socialist countries are attained. Managing production under socialism is a major element in the mechanism of the conscious application of economic laws. The scientific foundation of management of the economy is the political economy of socialism, which provides the fundamentals for the theory of socialist economic management, the science of planning, and other scientific fields concerned with the many diverse aspects of planned management. Once scientifically sound political guidelines have been developed, organisation, i. e., the further sophistication of economic management in the widest sense, becomes the decisive activity. The most important ingredient, the core of socialist economic management is planning. This is carried out by the socialist state, its planning and economic bodies in conformity with the Party’s guidelines and decisions. Planning, like the entire economic system of management, is built in accordance with scientific principles of management developed by Lenin, of which the most important are scientific soundedness, democratic centralism, the priority of a political approach to economic problems, the use of material and moral incentives, etc. Major provisions on socialist economic management that reflect the progress of economic theory and the accumulated experience, have been legally recorded in the Constitution of the USSR. "The economy is managed on the basis of state plans for economic and social development, with due account of the sectoral and territorial principles, and by combining centralised direction with the managerial independence and initiative of individual and amalgamated enterprises and other organisations, for which active use is made of management accounting, profit, cost, and other economic levers and incentives.” The construction of developed socialism in the USSR requires further improvement of economic management to pace with the new scales and structure of the economy. Party decisions call for formulation and implementation of consistent measures which will cover the basic aspects of national economic management. The most important elements of these measures are the further scientifically valid sophistication of planning and the orientation to final economic results; better use of economic levers and stimuli such as cost accounting, profit, prices, bonuses, etc; improvement of the organisational structure and management techniques. One specific feature of social economic management is the extensive participation of masses of working people. Under socialism, management takes the form of self-management. The Constitution of the USSR stipulates the right of citizens 212 to participate in the management of state and social affairs, in the discussion and adoption of laws and measures of all-Union and local significance. Broad latitude for involvement in the management of the economy and in planning production and social development is given to work collectives (see Collective, Work, Production). Improved economic management is a major factor which makes it possible to make better use of the advantages of the socialist economy, to accelerate the scientific and technical progress, to make production more efficient and, through this, to deal with the various social problems involved in raising living standards. The decision "On Improvement of Planning and Increasing the Influence of the Economic Mechanism on the Grouth of Production Efficiency and the Quality of Work" that was adopted by the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on June 12, 1979 specified the measures to be taken to improve the economic mechanism at the current stage of developed socialism. They feature scientific validity, a comprehensive approach to the solution of a wide range of problems, and the consistent orientation of management to final economic results. A system of planning socio-economic development has been defined; significant changes have been introduced in planning indices— priority has been given to those which characterise the effectiveness of social production and the quality of work; problems have been resolved in matching industrial and territorial planning, accelerating progress in science and technology, accelerating the introduction of production capacities and plants, and increasing the efficiency of capital investment, the improvement of cost accounting, and the entire set of economic levers and stimuli.